


The Reed Which Grows Nevermore Again

by coolkidroland



Series: Hungry Thirsty Roots [3]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Goro Akechi has a palace, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-04-20 03:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14251680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolkidroland/pseuds/coolkidroland
Summary: They're going to get through this like a team:Kicking and screaming.





	1. Too Sweet is the Rind

**Author's Note:**

> Casually wanders by nearly a year later and drops this. All the positive comments, kudos, and support really mean a lot. It's been a great encouragement to do more of this. I'm still socially awkward, so apologies if replies are sparse both here and on Tumblr, but know that it all means the world to me.
> 
> And eternal thanks to the wife for beta-reading. <3
> 
> Third in the Hungry, Thirsty Roots series. Content warnings align with the game, but please see end notes for specifics. Also, please excuse any tiny details that have been tweaked between parts of the series, as some things have evolved with greater research and consideration.

> **Akechi:** I promise you this is easier to do over text.
> 
> **Akira:** esp since I’m going to tattoo ‘stop talking doctor’s orders’ on your forehead
> 
> **Akechi:** I fail to see how that would assist me at all
> 
> **Futaba:** you’d have to do it backwards so he could read it in the mirror every morning
> 
> **Futaba:** while you’re up there you should make a list
> 
> **Makoto:** Can we focus on Shido, please?
> 
> **Akechi:** Right.
> 
> **Akechi:** He is fundamentally driven by a desire to exert control.
> 
> **Akechi:** He is always the smartest person in the room, the most capable.
> 
> **Akechi:** Everyone else comes down to a supporting cast. Tools.
> 
> **Makoto:** A crew.

* * *

Sometimes, Akira finds the best way to cope is to look at the world through the lens of the disaffected, the nature documentarian who has already lost a limb and a half to smiling crocodiles.

Observe, he will say to the audience sitting at home, their fingers tucked away where no teeth can nip: underage drinking.

This is his own mistake. He managed, at some obscure point, to fake smooth criminal until he sort-of, kind-of made it. At least two and a half people are convinced, and Ryuji is one of them. Ryuji assumes that Akira and ill-gotten alcohol have a long and chummy relationship, that Akira has been ‘partying hard’ since he was old enough to slap on a pair of sunglasses and lie to the 7-11 clerk.

Which is absurd, because Akira absolutely doesn’t mind lying, but he very much does mind getting a 7-11 clerk in trouble. And sure, he’s thought about smuggling a few beers home, or crashing the right party, et cetera, et cetera, but in the end it all sounds like a lot of effort.

Ann is smiling at him. Ann _knows._

Well, she should. It’s Ann’s apartment they’re sitting in, Ann’s misbegotten alcohol they’re about to guzzle like the hooligans they are. Ryuji and Ann on one couch, Akira and Goro on the other. A lonely and pared down ‘us.’ Akira tries to convince himself it doesn’t really matter. There’s no amount of harassment that would get Makoto on board with this, and Haru is probably well past seeing alcohol as novel anyway. Morgana’s a cat, Futaba’s -- even more of a minor than they are, and Akira’s done playing around with Sojiro’s patience.

Ryuji point blank refused to drink if Yusuke was coming, which Ann will be discussing with him later in excruciating detail, Akira’s sure.

Goro picks up a can of Chu-hai and peers at the alcohol content. “Where’d you get these?”

He still sounds like he got ambitious about gargling glass. Akira brought the whiteboard, but Goro is more and more stubborn about talking. He’ll go on until he can’t anymore, which is the only way he knows ‘stop’ is an option.

“Ffft,” says Ann, more or less, “detective it.”

“I’m grounded from detectiving,” Goro says with a great deal of solemnity and only the slightest trace of irritation.

It’s good to hear him joke about it. It’s good that he found an alternative to staring blankly in shock or pacing the attic like a caged animal, crocodile teeth tearing into the pads of his fingers.

“Her parents bought it! Can you believe it!” Ryuji doesn’t. Ryuji is still waiting for his mother to leap out from behind a curtain and start condemning him to increasingly creative hells.

Ann rolls her eyes. “It belongs to my parents, and they don’t mind me drinking it because Europe. But drinking alone is a total drag, so hi.”

Goro tilts the can to read the ingredients label. He almost pulls off casual interest.

“Okay,” Akira leans back into the sofa, slinging an arm around Goro’s shoulders. “I want a completely honest show of hands: people who have drank before.”

Nobody moves. Ryuji’s eyes dart around the room. Ann creeps a hesitant hand into the air.

“Wine.” Her hand drops heavily into her lap. “On holidays,” she admits. “Look, just because they said I _could_ doesn’t mean I have. I have school, and a job, and I’ve seen my mom hungover!”

Ryuji slaps his hands over his face. “Oh my god,” he moans, “we’re nerds.”

“Yes, we are,” Akira says.

“You’re supposed to be cool!”

Akira shrugs. “I lied.”

“Akira’s cool,” says Ann. “I’m cool. Akechi’s -- ”

Before she can falter, Akira steps in. “Goro owns ten sweater vests, Goro’s not cool.”

He nudges Goro’s knee with his, hopes the silent reassurance comes across: _just teasing._ Just the sort of thing that friends do with friends. Goro jabs him in the side with a pointy elbow, which Akira thinks is understanding.

“This isn’t really necessary,” Goro says.

Ann shakes her head. “I’m putting my foot down. Everybody else got a party, you get a party.”

Goro looks touched -- or confused. One or the other. “In that case, I’d like to make a patently uncool suggestion.”

“I’ll consider it,” Ann tells him.

“Can we go to that bakery we passed on the way here and get cake instead?”

They get cake. They get two cakes.

* * *

Akira’s changed his phone background; Makoto can see it over his shoulder. For the last little while, it’s been a group photo. Today, it’s a picture of Ann and Akechi, each of them holding at least 4,000 yen worth of cake covered in candles. The piles of whipped cream and macarons and edible decorations might explain why Ryuji’s looking a little green around the gills this morning.

Makoto’s teeth grind. They’re standing in the shadow of the Parliament Building, ready to bring Masayoshi Shido to justice, and Akira is out spending Phantom Thief money on cakes for Shido’s son.

Perhaps she’s being unfair. Perhaps the cakes were for Ann, for some previously undisclosed Finnish holy day dear to Ann’s heart, one which demands cakes and posing for pictures -- flirty pout and all -- with your enemies. Perhaps, if Makoto is very lucky, Ann and Sae are participating in the same elaborate long-con, working in tandem to take Akechi down from the inside. But no, Ann’s not that good an actress, and Sae obviously doesn’t care that much about Makoto’s feelings.

( _There’s nothing like sitting down at your kitchen table and listening to your sister tell you she wants to adopt a serial killer, honestly. Makoto tries to catalogue the physical sensations -- sweaty palms, a jackhammer increase in heart rate -- and can only include that she’s either having some sort of panic attack or is about to literally explode and make a terrible mess of the apartment._

_“I refuse to be related to him.”_

_“I’m not telling you to get your opinion or your advice,” Sae says. She made Makoto a cup of tea. She’s trying, and that makes it worse. “I’m telling you because I know it’s going to affect your life, and I do want to minimize that impact.”_

_“Minimize impact!” Sometimes Makoto wishes she never learned to raise her voice; it’s harder and harder to turn her own volume down. “We are well past the point of minimizing Akechi’s impact!”_

_Sae raps her knuckles on the table twice, like she’s trying to get someone’s attention in a busy conference room. “Mind the neighbors.”_

_“You mind the neighbors!” Makoto knows it’s gibberish even as it’s coming out of her mouth. The look Sae gives her agrees._

_“You’re smarter than this, Makoto. You’re sharp. I hope none of this is...lingering teenage drama.”_

_Makoto has to leave. She has to go to her bedroom, shove her face in a pillow, and scream.)_

Not that this is about Makoto’s feelings.

Haru twists her fingers in the weight of her sweater. Makoto presses a hand against the small of her back: _I’m here._ Even if Makoto ever forgives Akira for his shortsighted embrace of Akechi, for diving headfirst into decisions made by hormones and pity, she won’t forget how he dropped Haru like a hot potato. On the school rooftop, confessions and questions tumble out of Haru in stops and starts.

To be trusted with that vulnerability is a gift. Makoto will not allow Haru to be swallowed whole by some villain.

Haru’s shoulders relax. She murmurs, “thank you, Mako.”

Makoto will make some excuse for her blush later. She’ll have to, if Futaba’s waggling eyebrows are any indication. Futaba and Yusuke have been watching far too many serial dramas. Makoto needs to find them something more wholesome to focus on.

(What that might be, she has no idea. Cooking shows are wholesome, maybe. Definitely not the home shopping networks, given Yusuke’s budgetary disaster area.)

“We ready?” Akira asks, still the leader despite everything. And despite everything, he gets a chorus of agreement.

Somewhere in the middle of the strange, sticky feeling of crossing over to the Metaverse, Makoto drops her hand from Haru’s back. As the oceans of the apocalypse rise up around them, Haru takes Makoto’s hand instead, gloved palm against gloved palm.

* * *

 Joker’s mask settles itself on Akira’s face. He averts his eyes from Haru and Makoto’s intertwined hands, self-conscious about their privacy.

If Goro’s bruises have followed him to the Metaverse, his collar and mask cover them. The mask can’t quite hide the wildness of his eyes, too much white visible around the irises; his collar doesn’t quite strangle the noise he makes, something like a refusal. He startles away from Akira’s fingers at his elbow, takes two wide steps backward and nearly trips over Morgana. Akira holds up his empty hands, palms out: no weapons, no threat.

He can’t deny it hurts. Similarly, he can’t deny that he’s a little sleep deprived, that he’s lost hours to scouring the internet for astonishingly contradictory advice. _Therapy_ , Sae said, and Akira feels selfish when he hopes it happens soon. He doesn’t have regrets. He has the sick, sinking feeling that silenced him in the back of a police car, in a holding cell, in juvenile court, in Kamoshida’s palace without Arsene: helpless in the face of something larger, and bitter. The bitterness of an animal caught in a trap.

It’s an alarmingly pertinent metaphor, when he thinks of Goro gnawing off his own leg to escape.

Morgana yips out an objection and Goro teeters back towards Akira, a wobbling doll caught in its own orbit. Then he straightens: straightens his shoulders, straightens his gloves, straightens the fall of his coat. He stands and breathes and looks around with an assessing eye, as if the moment never happened at all. Akira thinks - just for a second - that Goro’s gaze catches on the corner of the deck where the Velvet Room glimmers, and memory snags like cloth.

Didn’t Igor say --?

But if Goro sees the door and its unusually fidgety attendant, he’s good at ignoring it. Not beyond the realm of possibility, but overshadowed by the doors looming at the other end of the deck.

“Melodramatic,” Goro declares at last, his voice smooth and easy.

“Dude,” says Ryuji, “You’re one to talk.”

“There is a difference,” Goro says, as if he knows what Ryuji’s talking about, “between dramatics and melodrama.”

“Sure, man, if you say so.” Ryuji grabs the railing and hauls himself up to look at the churning waters below them, teetering precariously overboard. “You guys think anything lives down there?”

Yusuke makes a noise like a cat being stepped on and hauls Ryuji back by his collar. “I daresay things are more likely to die down there than live.”

Not that ‘up here’ is any better. Akira leads the way inside because he can, because he should, and because it’s marginally better than standing on the deck wondering if he’s seasick or not. In the recesses of his mind, Arsene paces; Akira feels him like the weight of wings. In the past, he’s dismissed Arsene, shuffled him into the Velvet Room’s - what? Files? Morgue? To make way for this spell or that one.

The longest that lasted was all of two hours. Arsene laughed to be welcomed back in the fold, laughed again the next time Akira tried and called him home ten minutes later. With Arsene, Akira feels somehow stronger, somehow larger. Realer. Who knows, maybe he’s just working out that lingering childhood spite. ‘My new dad wears a tophat.’

Akira reminds himself, again, that he’s being petty. That, in the grand scheme he’s been presented, his dad is going for a silver in the parenting Olympics. Gold goes without contest to Sojiro, who still hasn’t kicked out his petty ass or his boyfriend’s belligerent one. Who just sighed and said ‘not forever.’ Who called up some old coworkers and old favors to see a couple off of Shido’s hitlist disappeared right into witness protection.

Silver medal is pulled in by ‘not physically violent’ and ‘would probably just ignore the gay thing.’

( _“So, like. Question.” Ryuji is on his third piece of cake, and the sugar is helping him along to a space nigh-on drunk. “Are we all - ” he spins his fork in a way that’s meant to be profound or expositing and fails at either._

_Denial is still Akira’s force of habit. “Sorry excuses for criminals? We didn’t even steal these cakes.”_

_“We did lie to get candles,” says Ann, whose birthday it is not. The bakery may never recover from her deceit._

_“No, you know, uh - homo.”_

_“Oh, well. I’m bisexual, so. Maybe?” The word sits easy on her tongue, somehow. Maybe it’s her perfect English accent, or that she doesn’t flinch away from it. She didn’t so much confess about Shiho as awkwardly realize that she had to, even to the witnesses of rooftop declarations of love._

_“Huh.” Ryuji takes a minute to mull that over, masticating it like his next bite of cake. “I guess that’s a thing, isn’t it?”_

_Goro hums thoughtfully. “There have been some small studies done on the phenomenon of like congregating to like, even unknowingly. We subconsciously seek out those we perceive as, somehow, safe.”_

_Akira says nothing. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. It’s stupid, isn’t it? He’s got a boyfriend and he works at a drag bar. He’s got a Risette poster for non-licentious reasons. It’s not as if half of his world isn’t in the know, but the conversation flits onto a side topic -- Makoto’s crush on Haru -- without him. He is unmoored, unmasked._

_Goro puts a hand on his knee and gives him another macaron to shove in his mouth. It’s a good excuse for silence. The uptick of Goro’s smile is sad, knowing. Akira licks a fleck of icing from his thumb and breathes a bit easier.)_

Goro does not breathe easy. The party guests ignore them, tittering nonsense, but the guards do not. Robin Hood is at the throat of every shadow. Even in between fights, the glow of him doesn’t quite dissipate; his presence clings to Goro in a blue haze.

No one breathes easy, not even in the safe room.

“So,” says Makoto, brisk and clipped, “I’ve been wondering.”

No use asking who she’s talking to. Goro stills in his pacing and turns to her. He folds his arms and lifts one hand to his chin, tilts his head and smiles. It’s a familiar posture, fragile as glass. Akira stays where he is, hands fisted in his lap, and lets this happen. There’s some small idea forming in his mind: he can’t stand between Goro and everything. He will when -- if -- he has to.

“About?” Goro prompts.

“To kill people, you just murdered their Shadows, correct?” Police-perfect, interrogation-exact.

“Just,” Goro echoes. “Just! Simply, only. Yes. I’m sure there are exceptions, but most people cannot survive without their Shadow any more than you can survive without your heart, your lungs, your brain stem. Eventually, they, ah, collapse? Implode. Too empty to maintain shape.”

Across the room, Haru is ashen and tight lipped under her mask. Akira meets her eyes. She looks away.

“What about the others?” Makoto asks.

“Others?” The halo of magic around Goro thickens, waits.

“The truck drivers, the train conductors. The ones that took people with them.”

“You don’t think keeling over at the wheel is sufficient?”

“Their actions were deliberate.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t realize you’d had a chance to ask them, officer.”

“There’s a difference between death and a psychotic break.”

Goro sneers, drops all his careful gestures. “I hope you all know what a misnomer that is. Parroting words the media cooked up to be as sensationalist as possible, what good does that do you? Some people just can’t stand to die alone.”

He’s lying. The pitch of his voice, the set of his shoulders, the way he rubs hard at his pinky -- a new bad habit since he was attacked. Makoto can see it too.

“If you were truly penitent, you’d tell us everything we needed to know. For your own safety and ours.”

Goro barks out a laugh. “Safety! If you’re looking for safety, you’re in the wrong fucking spot!”

And there’s the line.

“Drop it,” Akira tells Makoto.

“Joker -- ”

“I said drop it.” Arsene leaks into his voice, a wellspring of confidence and selfishness. “Now’s not the time.”

He didn’t think it was possible for her to be more unimpressed with him, but there it is. And as much as he’s set the Hermit upright in Igor’s hands, he feels another scale tipping out of balance.

* * *

 

> **Ann:** okay question
> 
> **Ann:** whooooo is a famous poet from Iwate
> 
> **Akira** : idk ask Goro
> 
> **Akira:** he’s always ‘reading’ those ‘books’
> 
>  
> 
> **Ann:** Akira says you know who a famous poet from Iwate is
> 
> **Goro:** Have neither of you grasped the intricacies of an internet search?
> 
> **Ann:** Yeah, but it’s not cheating if I ask you.
> 
> **Goro:** That is absolutely not true.
> 
> **Goro:** The answer is probably Kenji Miyazawa.
> 
> **Ann:** How do you just like...know that?
> 
> **Goro:** I could have just Googled it.
> 
> **Goro:** On the other hand, I could enjoy his visions, however far fetched, of a utopia.
> 
> **Ann:** Ugh, why is everyone I know so smart ):
> 
> **Goro:** I’m flattered that you think so, though I don’t think my recognition of classic literature makes me any more intelligent than knowing who wrote Dune.
> 
> **Ann:** wtf is dune
> 
> **Goro:** nevermind
> 
> **Ann:** no wait I GOOGLED IT
> 
> **Ann:** Wow, you’re a nerd

* * *

Akira wakes in the Velvet Room, chains on his ankles and his mouth dry. He’s not cold, not warm. The Velvet Room brings with it an odd lack of sensation: his cuffs don’t chafe, the rough cotton of his prison clothes doesn’t rub his skin raw. He prods at the one of the bedposts with a bare toe; it’s the exact same temperature as the rest of the room, and it feels like he could crack it down the middle if he put his mind to it, a particularly stubborn eggshell.

“Are you pleased?”

Igor sounds - kind of pissed off, in his weird, echoing way. Arsene, prowling among the cells in Akira’s mind, cautions guile. With care for the chains and the expression on his own face, Akira swings himself out of bed and goes to the door. Caroline and Justine stand as silent as gargoyles.

“Pleased?” Akira asks, wrapping one hand around the not-cold bars.

Igor glares over his folded hands, or maybe that’s just how he always looks. “Another arcana reversed. You’re upsetting the game board and scattering the pieces. What are you trying to achieve?”

“We need to take out Shido.”

“Why?”

“He’s -- ” ‘Evil’ is too trite a declaration. “He’s trouble.”

“Take care not to let distractions stray you from your goal, lest you backslide into the crimes that brought you here.”

“What do you mean?” Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

Caroline hisses out a warning. Akira tips his head down towards his jailers. Justine answers his questioning look with a small shake of her head. Later, Akira thinks, when Igor’s gaze isn’t so sharp.

“Take care with the company you seek,” says Igor, calm again. “Some exist only to lead you off the righteous path, into the tangle of dark woods.”

Akira wants to ask him how much he sees. Igor never mentions anyone by name, prods vaguely at incidents. If he’s got some kind of all-seeing eye, it’s an inexact one. Akira hopes. Igor stares at him, expectant.

“I’ll do what I think is right.” A half-assed declaration from a Phantom Thief of Hearts, but he doesn’t want to give up too much honesty. Igor has a look in his eye.

“So be it.”

* * *

Akira wakes with Goro’s face mashed between his shoulder blades. The bed is really too small for two, and Goro has a habit of migrating downward through the night in fits and starts and kicking limbs. His feet are probably hanging off the edge of the bed, escaping the blanket’s warmth. Morgana has adapted by moving ever-upward instead; Akira can feel fur against the back of his head.

A bigger bed, he thinks, in the vague way that he dares think of the future. One more year until graduation, a year back in the alien halls of his old high school. He thinks he can do it, if he thinks about afterward. If they can make sure Tokyo is safe for Goro -- if Akira can make it into some mid-tier Tokyo university --

A creaky little one bedroom, just enough for a double bed or two futon side-by-side.

His phone buzzes.

 

> **Makoto:** We need to talk.
> 
> **Akira:** Okay. When and where?
> 
> **Makoto:** As soon as possible.
> 
> **Makoto:** Do you know anywhere we can get some privacy?
> 
> **Akira:** Sure. I’ll send you the address.

Well, there’s something he’s been meaning to do anyway. He fumbles out one more text before he drags himself out of bed, throwing the blanket over Goro’s head.

 

> **Akira:** Feel up to hosting some teenaged drama?
> 
> **Lala:** Depends. It should at least be interesting drama.

Akira scoops up Morgana and drops him on Goro’s side, waking them both up in one explosion of indignation. The blanket drags Goro’s hair even further out of order. He sits cross legged with Morgana, each of them staring at Akira with the same baleful judgement. Warmth bubbles up in Akira’s chest, a pleasant shortness of breath. He can’t help his own grin.

“What?” Goro demands.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“He is,” Morgana agrees, hopping out of Goro’s lap and stretching magnificently. “Futaba is going to take me over to Haru’s today. Don’t -- ” Morgana takes a moment to review all of the things they shouldn’t be doing, “get pregnant?”

“You’re still confused about where babies come from,” Akira says. He nudges Morgana towards the stairs with his foot. “Get, shoo. Bad cat.”

Goro waits until Morgana’s disappeared downstairs to ask, “And what has you all chipper this morning?”

“Am I chipper? I didn’t notice.” Akira drops a kiss to the top of Goro’s mussed hair. “Dress nicely, we’re going to see someone who will notice if you don’t. And Makoto.”

Goro makes a disgruntled noise, but he follows Akira downstairs to brush his teeth and comb his hair. It’s getting long. Shoulder-to-shoulder over the bathroom sink, Akira reaches over and pulls Goro’s hair back into a stubby ponytail. Goro wrinkles his nose. It’s an old argument already; Goro doesn’t think he looks good with his hair out of his face, only does it when it’s more important to hide that his current relationship with shampoo can be best described as ‘passing.’ Akira digs a hair tie out of Goro’s increasing stock of bathroom supplies anyway.

Between the ponytail and a pair of sunglasses pilfered from Ann -- so large and fashionable that they swallow half of Goro’s face -- he’s pretty unrecognizable.

“I look like I’m avoiding the paparazzi,” says Goro from behind scarf, glasses, and sickly-purple-green bruises. “And I fail to see how that actually helps me avoid the paparazzi.”

“Think of it as the purloined letter of fashion choices.”

Maybe that wouldn’t work, anywhere but Tokyo. In Tokyo, they share their subway car with three similarly dressed people, two girls in enough bows and petticoats to smother lesser beings, and an exceedingly polite doomsday profit. No one pays Goro or his sunglasses any mind.

Shinjuku isn’t exactly home-away-from-home, but Akira spends more than enough time in the neighborhood. He’s familiar with the people he can make eye contact with, and he avoids those he shouldn’t. At the sight of Crossroad’s vibrant sign, Goro’s eyebrows make an appearances above the shades.

“You hang out here?”

Akira shrugs. “I work here. When I’m not grounded.”

So little has been said on that subject, Akira hopes Sojiro has simply forgotten.

“It doesn’t seem...your speed,” Goro says, panting as he makes his way up the stairs. His breathing rasps from the combination of the cold air and exercise.

Akira holds the door open for him as if that’s helpful enough. “No?”

Lala likes to make like Crossroads is fancy, so she maintains a little coat room before the bar proper. The rack is mostly empty this early in the day, and Akira and Goro stand crowded in the tiny room, surrounded by velvet-rose wallpaper, breathing each other’s air. It should feel stifling.

“For a guy who’s put his tongue in my mouth, you can be amazingly circumspect on the issue.”

“What issue?” Akira asks, but his attempt at playful falls flat. He shrugs again. “Ryuji and I were hanging out down here one afternoon, and these guys started teasing us. Ryuji flipped, and I just...got sick of it.”

Goro pauses in unwinding his scarf. “Ryuji? Ryuji Sakamoto and his fresh passion for art appreciation?”

Another shrug. Akira is going to have shoulders fit for bench pressing the world, at this rate. “I didn’t react much better. Maybe he thought _I_ was flipping out. I kind of was. We hadn’t known each other for that long, then, and well. Like you said, I’m circumspect.”

“So you made up for it by working at a drag bar?”

“Lala makes it a good place to be.”

“And this is where we’re meeting Makoto?”

“Lala won’t let her kill me.”

It occurs to Akira, belatedly, that Lala might let Makoto kill _Goro._ As they walk into the bar proper, Lala catches sight of them; her expression quickly morphs from delight to suspicion.

_Maybe_ , Akira thinks, _I can convince her this is my_ other _unfortunate boyfriend._

“Mama,” Akira says, urging Goro forward with a firm hand on his shoulder, “this is -- ”

“That young man of yours, I assume.” Lala’s not shy about interrupting, or about coming around the bar to stare down at him.

Goro’s not shy about staring right back. He doesn’t even flinch when she reaches over and takes his sunglasses off. At the sight of the bruises in all their glory, her expression gives an inch. She props a hand on her hip.

“You’re that detective boy.”

“Retired.”

“Heard a lot about you.”

The television smile comes out in half-force, still distorted by swelling and discomfort. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you how much of that is true.”

“Did you get jumped, or have you just taken up MMA in your spare time?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

Lala meets Akira’s eyes and raises her perfect brows. His life is a stormy sea of disbelief. One more shrug for good measure. What can he tell her? Goro’s lie is as good as any, even if Goro’s said it like he knows it’s stupid. He must. It is.

“Sure thing, honey.” She hands him the glasses back. “No police business in my bar.”

He holds the glasses loose in his fingers. “Like I said, I’m retired.”

“One more coming,” says Akira, ushering Goro to a back booth and praying that the clientele today makes a weak gesture towards respectable. If Makoto starts any shit, he’s never going to hear the end of it.

He thinks he can trust her, but, hey. She thought she could trust him, and look how that went for her. Goro curls his fingers around Akira’s wrist and they sip seltzer-water cocktails until Makoto makes an appearance. She’s a little stiff-shouldered on her way through the bar, a little awkward, but she smiles at Lala and doesn’t go sniffing around for the liquor license or anything.

She smoothes down her skirt and slides into the booth across from Akira. “Good afternoon.”

“Hey,” says Akira.

Goro, for the first time in days, decides to follow doctors’ orders. He sits, silent, lips pursed around his straw. That’s something like an effort.

“You...look well.”

“Sure.”

It’s like they’ve only just met. Not even when the _first_ met; Akira would welcome that simmering antagonism. At least there was something to that. Makoto sits across from him, a shuttered house: lights off, doors locked. Her hands are folded primly on the table in front of her.

Akira breaks first. “What do you want?” Not great. “To talk about,” he amends, almost smooth.

He just wants her to crack. He knows she’s capable of smiling, he’s seen heaps of evidence. He just wants --

Things he’s surrendered.

“In light of the importance of our most recent work, I’d like to...propose a ceasefire.”

Goro makes a sound around his straw that sends Shirley Temple ricocheting down his windpipe. He hacks into his sleeve, coughs like sandpaper. Akira rubs Goro’s back, meeting Makoto’s disapproving stare head on. What else can he do, with the horse so far out of the barn it’s been exported to a foreign country?

Makoto waits for Goro to rattle to a stop before continuing: “I think it’s to everyone’s benefit if we can negotiate. I’m willing to have said my piece on Akechi’s involvement.”

“What’s in it for you?” Goro says into a cocktail napkin. “What’s the catch?”

Her prim hands crumple into clenched fists. “I have a Mementos request.”

“That’s all?” Goro asks.

“I checked the Meta-Nav. He doesn’t have a palace. But I’m sure he’s in Mementos.”

Akira already knows, but he still has to ask. “Who?”

“Hayato Sugimura.”

Got it in one. “Haru’s fiance.”

“If that’s what you want to call him.”

“How chivalrous of you,” says Goro. “Except you’re not coming, are you?”

“Why wouldn’t --” Akira’s brain catches up to the look on Makoto’s face. “You’re not coming.”

“No. Akechi owes Haru. Akechi needs to do this.”

Community service. Akira wonders if Makoto sees what she’s doing, sees judge and jury underneath her own decision. She’s determined that Goro serve some sentence, whatever’s in her power to dole out.

“Morgana has to go, and I’m not staying behind,” says Akira.

If he wanted, he could push it. Ann and Ryuji would come, if he asked. He thinks Futaba and Yusuke might, too. A million arguments could be made about what Haru deserves to do for herself.

“Fine,” Makoto says, knuckles white.

But. Even if she thinks she’s punishing Goro, Akira deserves it. Maybe -- Maybe he can step back from the things he’s said to Haru, close a little bit of the gap that stretches between them. He likes to be liked. He keeps track of his own failings.

Goro props his chin in one hand. “Fine,” he echoes back.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

Goro shrugs. “This doesn’t mean I care about your feelings. Auntie.”

Makoto leaps up with the all the sudden, coiled power of a martial artist and pissed off teenager. In the real world, she’s head and shoulders above either of them. Given a votive candle and tactical knowledge of where Lala keeps the brooms, though, Akira thinks he might be able to give her a good fight.

“Whatever you care about, you’d better figure it out. I know where that adoption contract is, and I’ll shred it as many times as it takes for Sis to give up on you.”

“She doesn’t have as much patience for you as you seem to think she does.”

Lala’s heading over even before Akira gives her the signal for ‘trouble on the floor.’ Akira’s seen her kick out bigger problems, and he’ll take care of Goro.

He doesn’t know why -- okay, he knows exactly why, but -- Goro is capable of kindness and good humor. What he doesn’t know is why he thought this would go well, then. His good mood sits abandoned on the side of the road some kilometers back.

“Out,” says Lala, not to be argued with.

They go.

* * *

The boys head off to god-knows-where to god-knows-what. It’s not, presumably, murder. Sojiro never knew his bar could be set so low, but there it is. He itches for normal like a cigarette. What he wouldn’t give for the most obnoxious thing in his life to be a customer who thinks they know about politics. That’s the masochistic thought that drives him to open for lunch, to put up with the trickle of complaining elderly.

Silly him.

He’s barely one customer down, a hipster out the door, when the goon shows up. Sojiro knows a goon when he sees one, and this is a goon with airs and ambitions. The guy stands in the doorway, letting the afternoon sunlight frame him in melodramatic shadow. His suit is tailored, his gloves are leather, and his sunglasses are obvious knockoffs. The looming technique is practiced, and it probably works pretty well on people who haven’t seen it before. But Sojiro’s seen it. Hell, Sojiro’s done it. It’s an old gag.

“Come in and shut the door, you’re letting the flies in.”

Goon frowns, displeased, but does as he’s told. Part of the rule book, Sojiro remembers: be polite, be courteous, be kind. Anger and pain make more of a mark when they’ve got something to contrast.

“Sojiro Sakura,” says the goon in a low, drawling voice that he probably practices every morning in front of the mirror.

Sojiro sighs and puts down his washcloth. When’s he ever going to have a chance to run a damn cafe again? Fucking kids.

“Usually,” he says. He pulls out a cigarette, lights it, and pointedly does not offer the goon an ashtray. “You want the lunch special? It’s good.”

“I’m not here for lunch.”

“American place two blocks down does an all-day breakfast.”

“I’m here for a chat.”

Sojiro gestures broadly with his cigarette, arcing smoke through the air. “This look like a host bar to you?”

“Do you think you’re being cute?” the goon asks.

“Buddy, I gave up on cute awhile ago. You know my name. Are you going to introduce yourself?”

“Tanaka.”

And if that’s the guy’s real name, Sojiro will eat his hat.

“Sit down and have a coffee, Tanaka.”

Not-Tanaka takes a seat at the bar. Akechi’s usual seat, because of course. Sojiro puts on his most expensive coffee beans; if he can get this guy to pay his bill, he’s going to make it worth his own while. No other customers come to save Sojiro the awkward interrogation. Will Tanaka stay half-pleasant, or is he going to bust out bad cop?

“Nice place you have here,” says Tanaka.

“Shame if something happened to it?” Sojiro shrugs. “Not really. Burn it down. I’ll collect the insurance and move to a hipper neighborhood.”

“You’ve been interfering.”

“With what?”

“You know.”

“I really don’t. Are you going to enlighten me, or are we going to gawk at each other for the next three minutes?”

They’re going to gawk at each other for the next three minutes, evidently. Sojiro smokes his cigarette down and stubs it into the sink. He waits for the coffee to brew, rinses some dishes. Tanaka doesn’t so much as fidget. Sojiro pours him a cup of coffee and places it on the counter like a dear, gentle child.

“Put cream or sugar in that and I’ll kick you out of here,” he says.

Tanaka takes a sip and grimaces at the bitterness. What a baby. “You know who sent me,” he tough guys to cover it up.

“Again. I don’t. If this is about my pension, I’ll fight you for it.”

“Does social services know you’ve picked up another kid?”

“If they do, I want my medal.” Alarms don’t start going off in Sojiro’s head. Those alarms have been clamoring since Not-Tanaka-Actually opened the door. But Sojiro’s gut sinks, starts up the radio broadcasts and the S.O.S. He resolves not to flinch.

Tanaka drums his fingers against his coffee mug, well-trimmed nails tap-tapping against the ceramic. He arranges his face into something thoughtful, but it doesn’t suit him.

“I’m sure if you asked Mr. Akechi, he’d be happy to enlighten you as to... the harsh realities. One kid that’s not even yours, that’s an act of charity. The second, well. We know you weren’t feeling charitable when you cashed the check to look after the delinquent. But three, Mr. Sakura. Three starts looking an awful lot like a collection.”

Sojiro forces himself to maintain eye contact with awful sunglasses. “I don’t have custody and I don’t want it.”

“That’s worse.” Tanaka clucks his tongue like a disappointed granny.

“I know who sent you. You know I know who sent you. Why the BS? Don’t tell me he cares about the welfare of some brat he put out a hit on.”

“You’re interfering.”

Interfering ‘hardcore,’ as Futaba would say. It’s all come pretty cheap, to be honest. Sojiro might not have been the friendliest government agent around, but he was always scrupulously fair and forthright. That earned him a lot of kudos in the slime-pond of politics full of swimmers like Quote-Tanaka-Unquote. When he said that people were on a hitlist and needed to be quietly relocated, relocated they got. At least one is in America by now.

“Tell me something,” says Sojiro as he writes up the man’s bill and slides it across the bar. “Did he get a lackey to stomp the kid’s windpipe, or did he do that one himself?”

Tanaka’s lips thin. “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“I know you know. I know you know I know, right? Be a god damn wrench in the works if a story like that happened to get published before the election.”

“You can’t threaten us,” says Tanaka.

“I can and I will.” _But why_ , moans the retiree who lives inside Sojiro and doesn’t deserve to get knocked down and kneecapped like this, again and again. “Fuck your games. I don’t play them and I never have, but you don’t screw around with my kids. Any of my kids. Tell your boss to leave us alone.”

It’s a gamble. Even if it pays off, it’s not going to buy them a lot of time. But maybe Shido doesn’t want to show too many hands to his underlings. Or maybe Sojiro is digging himself an incredibly shallow grave.

Tanaka leaves without paying.

* * *

 

 

> **Goro:** I feel it’s only right to warn you
> 
> **Goro:** But I’m going to drive Akira out to the countryside and leave him there
> 
> **Goro:** Like a dog we’re telling the children we sent to a farm
> 
> **Ann:** Whoa there buddy
> 
> **Ann:** Promise you’ll pack him lunch.
> 
> **Goro:** No. He doesn’t deserve lunch.
> 
> **Ann:**  Did he make fun of your lightsaber?
> 
> **Goro:** He keeps asking when Spock is going to show up in Star Wars
> 
> **Goro:** I can tell he thinks he’s being funny
> 
> **Goro:** I’m selling him to the second hand store
> 
> **Goro:** He just asked me if a random droid is Spock
> 
> **Ann:** Goro.
> 
> **Ann:** May I call you Goro
> 
> **Ann:** Goro
> 
> **Ann:** Star Wars would be BLESSED if Spock showed up.
> 
> **Goro:** oh my god
> 
> **Ann:** you can’t handle the truth
> 
> **Ann:** or the dubbed Finnish DVDs hiding in the back of my mom’s closet
> 
> **Goro:** **┌∩┐(ಠ_ಠ)┌∩┐**
> 
> **Ann:** holy shit was that a kaomoji

* * *

Akira can’t skip any more school. Sojiro has been covering for him, but they’re both cutting it close. If Akira doesn’t shape up for the rest of the semester, somebody’s going to get clever and call his parents. That means sitting through homeroom, through math, through English class. It’s a little bit easier with Morgana back in his desk, but Akira’s mind is on an aggressive walkabout. He scratches at Morgana’s ruff and stares half-heartedly at the blackboard. Most days, he can drag himself through studying. Getting out of his parents’ house depends on getting into university, after all.

Today is -- a challenge.

Especially when Ann leans over her desk at lunch, peering at him intently. Ryuji’s invaded their classroom over the indignant protests, commandeered a desk over yet louder protest, and trapped Akira in a pincer movement of suspicion. He doesn’t blame them, but it’s one more thing. It’s always one more thing.

“Soooo. What’s up?”

‘Nothing’ crawls up Akira’s throat. He bites it back. “It’s a secret.”

“Dude,” says Ryuji, kicking Akira’s ankle. “You serious? Don’t be a shit.”

“I’m not. I --” Akira pulls off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. He leaves his glasses on his desk. Ann and Ryuji blur at the edges. “I promised Makoto.”

Ryuji slumps back in his stolen chair. “Oh.”

Ann glares at him. “What do you mean _oh_?”

“He owes her one, right?”

“Right,” says Akira, grateful for the foothold. “You wanted me to apologize, didn’t you?”

“‘Apology’ and ‘bloodpact’ are two different things and you know it.”

“It’s probably not a bloodpact.” Ryuji eyeballs Akira. “It’s not a bloodpact, is it?”

“It’s not, I promise.”

“Good enough for me. C’mon, Ann. It’s Makoto. She’s not gonna...do anything. She’s probably going to make him write lines or something.”

Or something.

Ann’s expression is all sorts of unimpressed. She’s going to bring it up with Makoto later, Akira knows. And maybe that’ll go well, but Ann isn’t… Ann and Ryuji are his favorite blunt objects. He didn’t go into lunch expecting to throw a brick at Makoto.

“It’s nothing I wouldn’t have agreed to do anyway.”

“No offense,” says Ann; Akira braces himself for the offense, “but you agree to, like. A lot.”

Akira looks to Ryuji. Ryuji shrugs. “I love you, man, but I’ve met your boyfriend.”

You don’t understand, Akira wants to argue. You don’t understand how we are, you don’t understand how he is. And yet. Goro is his boyfriend, yes. Goro is _his_ boyfriend. He doesn’t have to gut his relationship like a fish and display its innards for his friends’ divination.

One of their classmates has perked up and is trying, with an amazing lack of subtlety, to tip herself towards their conversation. Akira can almost read her thoughts: _Whose boyfriend? Ann’s boyfriend? Maybe -- could it --_

“Can you not, at school, please.” Not that whispering will save him now, since the gossip will notice his drop in volume. Ah, shit. Ah, well. That’s going to be all over the hallways in t-minus ten minutes, and what’s he supposed to do about it? The same thing he did about his criminal record: nothing. Not a word of a lie in it, after all.

Ryuji’s shoulders fall. “Sorry.” A penitent baseball bat.

Akira forces himself to unclench his teeth. “It’s fine.”

At least no one named names.

* * *

 

Ann bursts into the student government room like her only regret is not kicking the door down. She stands framed by the flickering halo of a failing hallway light, with her hands on her hips and her head held high. It’s only Makoto and the treasurer in today; the treasurer doesn’t deserve to be brutalized. Makoto quietly dismisses him. He edges past Ann and flees without her so much as looking at him. Ann strides in and closes the door, but she doesn’t lock it. That probably bodes well for the structural integrity of the furniture.

“Ann.” Makoto keeps her voice cool, keeps her attention on the fliers she’s sorting. “I didn’t realize you were interested in student government.”

The chair Ann drags across the floor makes an almighty screech. Makoto winches, then winces harder when Ann spins it around and drops down to sit in it backwards. It’s a little cheesy and profoundly unladylike.

“So!”

“Sew buttons on your underwear,” Makoto murmurs reflexively, squaring off another stack of fliers.

“What?”

Makoto returns Ann’s perplexed stare. “What?”

Ann rests both her palms on the table and tilts her chair forward. She’s going to take a nosedive into the linoleum at this rate.

“If your goal is to make Akira cry, I think you’re getting there.”

Makoto’s hands freeze, fingers trapped in the action of tidying corners. Her fingers are numb, her chest hollow. Everything that makes up the shape of her - Student Council President, Phantom Thief, sister - has dropped out of her. Blood roars in her ears and gathers in furious cheeks. He fingers clench into fists. They’ve been doing that a lot lately. She removes them from the fliers before she can ruin other people’s hard work.

“Have you spoken to Haru lately?”

“Ah.” Ann squirms. “No. You’ve had her back.”

“And I’ve seen significantly more tears than you have.” At this point, Makoto isn’t sure Akira’s capable. “And since she’s yet to lie to me, I still think I’ve got the better end of the bargain.”

“That’s between me and Akira.”

“So it is. I’m through discussing this.”

So, so through. She’s thrown herself into studying, akido training, laps in the pool at the gym until she thinks sheer anger will allow her to tear a man in half and breathe underwater. Nothing helps. Every moment, still or moving, is another moment of build up without release.

“You have a really bad habit of blackmailing people, you know that?”

Makoto tucks her hair behind her ear and tells herself: calm. “He told you.”

“No!” Ann throws her hands in the air and her chair thuds back to earth. “He told me he’s not going to tell me! How is this helping!”

“I’m not interested in helping Akira.”

“...are you serious?” Ann is quickly losing grasp on her priorities. Makoto can hear the wobble in her voice.

“Dead serious. He’s turned his back on us in favor of that -- that _thing._ ” Makoto draws in a breath. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to jeopardize the mission. I can work with him.”

Ann bites her lip. “You know, Akechi’s not so bad.”

“I’m not interested in hearing about it.” Makoto forces herself to keep her voice low, though she’d like to flip on the PA system and have at it. “He’s a murderer. More times over than you or I can count.”

“He’s just a kid.” Ann’s voice tilts further and further off-center, ready to escape from orbit and fling itself into the sun. “He’s just a kid like us, and -- we talk, a little bit. Text, mostly. I don’t think things were good for him, like. Ever.”

“I don’t think I care. Do you have a point?”

“My point is. If -- if Shiho had decided to hurt other people, instead of herself, I think I’d forgive her.”

Makoto...doesn’t like to think about Shiho. She thought, at the time: that girl must be a liar, that girl must be looking for attention, that girl is causing trouble. Because that’s what she was told to think. Ann said it once, and Ann was right, that Makoto failed. Makoto fundamentally, irrevocably failed a peer. She can’t do that again, not to Haru.

“That’s your choice to make. I’ve made mine.” The tightness in Makoto’s chest eases a fraction. “It’s just Mementos, Ann, I promise. They’ll have Morgana with them.”

Ann drums her fingers on the table and thinks about this. “All right,” she says at last, then leans over the table to grab a stack of fliers. “And where do these go?”

* * *

Akira lounges in Morgana’s front seat, long immune to the question of ‘interior spaces’ and ‘my magical cat.’ He made it roughly five minutes of empty, awkward catbus before he turned to lean against the door and sling his feet into Goro’s lap. Goro keeps absently untying and retying Akira’s bootlaces.

“How’s school?” he asks, the picture of mundanity in a demon’s mask and prince’s coat.

Akira lets his head fall back against the window. “It’s school. English test tomorrow, because fuck me, right?”

“What, no time to study?”

“Wonder why.” Akira nudges his heel gently into Goro’s stomach. “I should make you tutor me.”

“Mmm. Question one, Mr. Kurusu. What’s the plural of persona?”

“Trick question!” Morgana wails above them, around them. “Also, definitely not on his English test.”

Goro huffs softly. “Fine then. What do you want to study in college?”

His accent’s all right, if a little too soft around the edges. Akira’s been told he’s a natural at the mimicry, parroting back phrases like a tour guide. It’s all that stringing bits together that trips him up. He doesn’t even know what he wants to study in college in Japanese. He wants to study paying rent.

“Ah, maybe -- chemistry?”

Goro gives him a look. “You hate chemistry.” At least they’re speaking Japanese again.

“Yeah, but I remembered the word for it.”

Mementos drifts by out the windows, no longer nauseating in its patterns and bones. The monsters on the upper floors don’t want anything to do with them now. Akira wonders if they’ve learned to recognize Morgana through some sort of shadow gossip network. On any other day, he’d let Morgana play cat-and-mouse with them.

They lapse back into silence. It’s comfortable. If they weren’t surrounded by the psychedelic manifestations of distasteful humanity, Akira might even nap.

He keeps himself awake with a fit of masochism. “So, hey.”

“Yes?”

“Do you want Makoto to deck you, or…?”

Goro slumps back against the seat, his fingers going still. “No. I’d rather not get maced by Madame Junior Police.”

“Then why instigate?”

Goro turns his face to stare out the window. “Forgive the thinness of the excuse, but I don’t know.”

Akira has a couple of guesses. He thinks Goro does, too.

“You know, I don’t mind if you just ignore them outright.”

“That’s --” Goro raps his knuckles against the window in an empty beat. “Easier said than done. My temper has been more delicate than I’m used to.”

“You had it buried pretty deep. Your shadow…”

Goro freezes. Morgana slows down, then speeds up too fast to compensate. Akira jostles sideways. Slowly, movement returns to Goro, if only so he can pull off a glove and bring his hand up to worry at his cuticles with his teeth. He spits out a hangnail; Morgana yelps an objection about hygiene. Goro’s middle finger beads blood.

“My shadow?” he asks.

Akira wants to reach out to him, but tempers the urge. “Was pretty manic. If all the things you’ve been stuffing away are reintegrating, I’m not surprised you’re having some trouble with it.”

“Have you always been this generous?”

“When I was ten, I didn’t eat lunch for a month because I kept giving mine away to this kid whose mom always forgot his.”

“...what happened after a month?”

It’s Akira’s turn to look away, gazing out the windshield at the chaos. “My parents found out and stopped giving _me_ lunch for a month. ‘So I could appreciate what I had,’ they said.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s whatever. I was hungry either way.”

“Hunger’s different when you choose it.”

Akira swings his legs out of Goro’s lap and slides across the seat. As Joker, he’s probably even halfway to sauve as he reaches up and pulls the mask off Goro’s face. Goro blinks at him, perplexed, but it’s his own damn fault for having a mask like Igor’s horrid face. Akira drops it to the dashboard and curls his hands in Goro’s coat instead.

Their mutual make-out skills have improved considerably since that first fumbling moment in Goro’s apartment. Goro is learning that ‘pressure’ and ‘bruising’ are two fundamentally different things. Akira is learning not to put his boyfriend’s back to anything. They get by.

And they get away with necking in a sentient automobile right until Akira pulls Goro down on top of him, sprawling out on faux-leather and grinning up at Goro’s blown pupils.

Morgana slams on the brakes, sending Goro shoulder-first into the steering wheel. He grabs at it, horn blaring, as Akira tumbles to the floor. Rough carpet smooshes into his cheek. Morgana flings the doors open.

“Out! Out! You’re walking from now on!”

“Morgana -- ”

Morgana doesn’t let Akira negotiate, just starts flashing every light in his possession. The passenger door slams open and shut.

Goro hauls Akira up off the floor and ushers him out of the catbus before hopping down himself. He reaches back to shut the door, but Mogana beats him to it and then turns back into a cat-monster with an unhappy pop.

He kicks Akira in the shin. “Gross!”

Akira coughs into his palm to hide his smile. “Sorry.”

“You are not.” Morgana sets to fussily cleaning his paws and ears. “Gross, gross, gross!”

At some point in the chaos, Goro’s mask popped back into existence. It shades his warm grin. Akira knows he should keep on apologizing, but he needs a minute.

Goro crouches down to pat Morgana between the ears. “We will never again sully the chastity of your real leather interior. Are we close to the target?”

“You better hope so,” Morgana grumbles. “I’m going to feed you both to shadows.”

They’re close. Akira hardly needs Morgana to tell him so. He feels the shadow in a spike of adrenaline, in Arsene’s keen interest. Akira lets the persona’s instincts guide him on silent feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see a blue haze rising around Goro.

Sugimura is easy enough to corner. The Mementos shadows always are. What sets them apart, Akira wonders. Is it the scope of their crimes, the lack of ambition, or have they been judged poorly in overall creativity? Maybe, with time, with opportunity, every human shadow lurking around Mementos would grow a Palace.

Akira looks at the shadow and thinks: We could try to reason with him.

And then he thinks: No.

And Sugimura’s shadow bursts out of its human-seeming to rise above them, a skeleton moaning in hunger and grabbing at whatever comes into its reach. More than once, Morgana just barely squirms out from between its naked finger-bones.

It’s not a powerful shadow. They’re doing okay. Akira swallows down an order called out to Ann or Yusuke, wasting seconds every time he has to remember they’re not there. It’s harder than fighting alone, somehow. ‘Skull’ sticks in his throat before he switches persona, a delay that heaps larger and larger upon itself.

Goro rolls under a seeking hand and slices off two fingers at the second knuckle. The bones clatter to the ground at twitch at the joint. Morgana sweeps them away with a garu spell before the skeleton can reclaim them, then has to skip back as a curse winds itself around Goro’s arms. Diarama beats it back, but Goro’s already retreating. He didn’t expect to be healed.

The shadow lunges to follow Goro, and Akira sees the opening. He yanks Roland to the tip of his tongue. The shadow’s bellowed eiga hits him square in the chest, but only a second before Roland’s agidyne reduces the lumbering thing to charred bone and ash. Curse eats into Akira’s ribcage. He wheezes reedily.

If Sugimura gives a speech of contrition, Akira misses it. He props himself up against the nearest throbbing, sickly warm wall and tries not to think of his ribs curling inward to pierce his heart and lungs. The shadow dissipates, off to finish their work, and Akira slides down the wall, landing respectably on his ass.

There’s a hand on his shoulder. Its fingers tremble like a body on the verge of hypothermia.

Goro. There’s no blood in his face, no color in his cheeks. Akira grits his teeth and draws his arm up to cover Goro’s hand with his own.

“I’m fine,” he pants, ruining any illusion of fine he might have mustered. “It just hurts.”

“Zorro!” Morgana calls, and healing magic washes over Akira like a hot shower. He drags himself to sit straighter. The world isn’t even swimming. Goro doesn’t let go.

“That was --  ”

Akira cuts Goro off. “Something that happens. What do you think we have Mona for?”

“He’s good as new!” Morgana pumps one paw in the air. “There’s nothing to be worried about when I’m on scene!”

“You were worried,” Goro hisses at Morgana.

Akira gives his hand another vague pat. “Like I said, it happens.”

“That was bad.”

“We’ve been lucky. It’s my fault, I was expecting…”

“Skull,” says Goro. His breathing is starting to even out, but his pupils are still pinpricks and he won’t ease his grip. “Or Queen.”

“Well, yeah.”

Akira tests out a deep breath. Nothing grinds together that shouldn’t. He rolls his shoulder. His chest feels fine. Goro finally, finally loosens up. Akira takes his hand and fits their palms together, fingers intertwined. He squeezes gently. A little positive example never hurt.

Goro stares down at their hands. “I apologize.”

“For not being a brick wall? Welcome to the club. You’ll have to stand in the back with me and Fox, but we have good conversations.”

“For getting you into this mess.”

“Mako -- Queen got me into this mess, and I let her. I already have my guilt trip all planned out.”

Goro jerks away, hand and all. “Don’t.”

“Goro -- ”

“ _Don’t._ I rescind my apology if it upsets you that much.” Goro stands and dusts momentary dirt off his fine white slacks. “There’s no need to disgruntle the younger Niijima any further. You said you were all right?”

“Right as rain,” says Akira.

“Then it’s forgotten.”

Not quite, Akira thinks, but hope springs eternal. Maybe by this time next year, they’ll all be singing karaoke together. Or maybe Makoto will decide to go to university in Hokkaido. Or the states.

* * *

 

 

> **Goro:** What are your parents like?
> 
> **Ann:** Hoo
> 
> **Ann:** Boy
> 
> **Ann:** What a 1 a.m. question
> 
> **Goro:** I apologize
> 
> **Ann:** It’s fine, i was already up
> 
> **Ann:** My parents are like...well…
> 
> **Ann:** I love them and I know they love me.
> 
> **Ann:** But sometimes I do wish they were around to yell at me for liiiike
> 
> **Ann:** Waiting until 1 in the morning to do my homework!
> 
> **Ann:** What’s up?
> 
> **Goro:** I suppose I’m attempting to construct a narrative in its own absence
> 
> **Ann:** Suuuuuuure?
> 
> **Goro:** I’m curious about what normal looks like
> 
> **Ann:** Oh, well, you’re not gonna get that here.
> 
> **Ann:** I think Sojiro’s as close as it comes, and that’s still all what it is, you know?
> 
> **Goro:** I know
> 
> **Ann:** Aren’t Akira’s parents still together?
> 
> **Goro:** Nothing I hear about them bodes well.
> 
> **Ann:** Yeesh, go us.
> 
> **Ann:** Do you remember your mom at all?
> 
> **Goro:** I think any memory of her I have must be manufactured. I don’t know if I think she looks like me because I remember her, or if I’ve just, well...extrapolated? I don’t look much like my father.
> 
> **Ann:** Thank God
> 
> **Goro:** Do you admire my full head of hair?
> 
> **Ann:** Flowing locks! We should take you to get extensions. A dye job! You’d look great as a blond.
> 
> **Goro:** You’re a madwoman.
> 
> **Ann:** That’s what homework does to me. Akira’s asleep, isn’t he? No read receipts from fearless leader. You should go to bed too.
> 
> **Goro:** No luck in that department. What are you working on?
> 
> **Ann:** You any good at history, for a nerd?
> 
> **Goro:** I am excellent at history.


	2. Too Bitter the Core

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is! Thank you for your patience, please enjoy. Please see the end notes for chapter specific content warnings.

 

> **Akira:** mission accomplished
> 
> **Makoto:** Thank you
> 
> **Akira:** happy to help. i’ll pass that along to goro.
> 
> **Makoto:** I’d rather you didn’t.
> 
> **Makoto:** What he’s supposed to get from this is beyond gratitude.
> 
> **Akira:** cool
> 
> **Akira:** still going to tell him you said thank you
> 
> **Akira:** :)

* * *

Life in the Niijima apartment goes on as normally as it can manage. Sae is done discussing her decision, and Makoto has little choice but to respect that. She tries not to be disappointed. After all, there’s no reason for disappointment. If Makoto nurtured some hope that, at the end of things, Sae might be a bit warmer, a bit more _present_ , well. Nobody told Makoto those things were going to happen; she invented them all by herself.

It’s only that, well. Sae is a bit warmer, when it comes to Goro Akechi.

The uncomfortable part about having a persona, Makoto has found, is that it fills all the spaces where one used to hide doubt and guilt and grief. She must admit that her ire against Akechi is not new. His inadvertent crimes against her are but a drop in an overflowing bucket, a bathtub, an ocean. Still, she hated him before he insulted her. She hated him before he ever introduced himself.

She’s hated Akechi since her first dinner eaten alone while her sister took their ‘junior detective’ out for sushi.

This was supposed to be the end of that. And yet, here Makoto sits, take out sushi in front of her, sister seated at the table across from her, and Sae is perusing admissions material for several local high schools.

“Akechi’s a third year,” she points out.

“It’s unlikely he’ll be able to finish out the year. It’ll be a bit more complicated, but I’d prefer to see him transfer and re-do the first semester come April.”

Makoto bites back a scoff. “You think he’ll agree to that?”

“If he knows what’s good for him, yes.”

“He’s not coming to Shujin.”

“No? It’s on my list. The main point against it is the possibility of Kurusu’s continued enrollment, however slim. I’d rather spare your teachers their hormonal interludes.”

Makoto wrinkles her nose. “Do you have to say it like that?”

“Forgive me, it’s an expression I picked up from Sojiro.” And since when did Mr. Sakura get to be Sojiro? “You’re graduating, Makoto. It can’t matter that much to you.”

“What if Futaba decides to go to our school?”

Makoto can’t possibly be expected to commute from Todai every day just to make sure Akechi hasn’t done anything awful.

“Futaba is learning rather heavily towards Kosei.”

The world stutters, and Makoto pauses with her food halfway to her mouth. “Really? She hasn’t said anything to us.”

Sae finally looks up from the pamphlets and her bullet point lists. There’s a little wrinkle between her eyebrows, a not-quite-frown.

“No?” she asks. “Well, the test scores necessary are somewhere in the realm of astronomical. She may be waiting until it’s a sure thing. In which case, I said nothing.”

That pulls half a smile out of Makoto. “I heard nothing. It’ll be nice for her to be at school with Yusuke.”

Part of Makoto wants to ask Sae _why._ The greater part of her has heard enough of _why_ , or _what if_ , or _just think._ Haru is safe from Sugimura. Makoto will make sure she stays safe, from him or otherwise. She’ll hold up her end of the agreement; she and Akechi can exist on opposite ends of a very large city.

That thinking drags her through the week. She even makes it through lunch on the school roof without wanting to hold Akira down and make him say ‘uncle.’ It’s enough that Haru is by turns radiant and flabbergasted, practically walking on air despite all they’re going through. The contract, she says, was a scam. Sugimura broke down and confessed. The board of directors is in disgrace.

Makoto thinks this one good thing, voluntary or not, will be enough. She believes that right up until she’s looking at Akechi again. He’s as vacantly pleasant as ever, and he’s definitely wearing Akira’s hoodie. Makoto decides the hoodie and the ponytail (and, she carefully does _not_ think, the fading bruises) make him look like a common criminal. Old ladies and small children must cross the street when they see him. He looks like the sort of person whose greatest achievement is stealing a bicycle.

“Akechi,” she bites out.

“Ms. Niijima.” He bows a little, like they’re at a business dinner. “Always a pleasure.”

Futaba doesn’t even look up from her phone. “Hey losers. Took you long enough.”

She sounds fine. Makoto wants to read something into the lack of eye contact, but that wouldn’t be fair.

“We lost track of time,” says Akechi, so demure.

Makoto frowns. “That’s incredibly irresponsible.”

She may have promised Akira they’d get along, but that doesn’t excuse Akechi from basic good behavior. She’d have scolded Ryuji for the same. Ryuji would have scuffed his foot and grumbled an apology. Akechi just squares his shoulders and keeps on smiling.

Akira waves it all off. “It was my fault, anyway. Let’s just get going.”

There must be a psychological term for the way a Palace dulls over time. Nothing happens to the Palace itself, of course, or the Shadow within it. All the same, Shido’s Titanic cutting through the ruins of Tokyo was heart-stopping the first time Makoto saw it. Now it just...is what it is. She walks the length of the deck without even peering over the side. Who cares what might lurk beneath the waves; it’ll all be gone in due time.

Joker doesn’t split them up. Queen hangs back with Oracle and Fox, keeping half an eye on their support and the rest of her attention on Noir. Noir doesn’t believe in hanging back, though she can sometimes be coaxed into it for the good of the group. She’s much happier knee-deep in the action, swinging that axe like it weighs nothing at all. It’s a sight to see.

Halfway down yet another backtracked corridor, Oracle makes an exasperated noise somewhere between her nose and her throat. That is, fascinatingly, a signal Fox seems to understand. He stops, Oracle stops, and Queen stops with them. She’d compare keeping track of the two of them to herding cats, but that’s an insult to Mona’s focus.

“You’re incorrigible,” says Fox, already crouching down.

“I’m a delicate fucking flower,” says Oracle, climbing onto his back and clinging there like a blue-ringed octopus on a mission. Fox stands and shifts her to a more comfortable position, then continues on after the others like nothing’s happened.

Freed from the constraints of walking and talking at the same time, Oracle turns to Queen. With Oracle’s mask and all the limbs, the overall effect is rather...eldritch.

“Soooo,” says Oracle, drawing out the syllables. “How you doing?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

“Uh huh.” Oracle drops her tone to one of conspiracy, though she ruins it by jabbing her hand out to point in front of them. “Did you see Joker’s hickey?”

“His -- excuse me?”

“More accurately, the splotch on his neck where Panther’s foundation can’t cover up his hickey, because she’s paler than him.”

“It’s true,” says Fox. “I could have told him the color match was all off. She has a very pink undertone. He should ask for yours next time.”

Queen takes a deep breath. “No. He shouldn’t.”

Oracle props her chin on top of Fox’s head and they spend the next little while in strained silence, watching the forward team chew through shadows. It’s all familiar by now, except for the addition of Crow in stark white, the blue aura of his persona never quite fading. There’s something very wrong with that boy.

Then Oracle grumbles out, “I can’t believe they were late because they were getting busy.”

Queen lengthens her stride and taps Skull on the shoulder. He gives her a nod and falls back to Fox and Oracle. Nothing else is said about Joker, hickeys or otherwise. Queen forces herself to find calm in combat, resolve in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Noir and calling down Johanna’s power.

It’s all going very well, until Fox instigates the cognitive Yakuza boss.

In all fairness, the fight was going to happen whether or not Fox dug up social graces. The Cleaner is the final key to Shido, so Queen tries not to dwell on the lack of manners applied. She applies, instead, a fist to its newly looming bulk and ducks under its counterattack. Noir darts into the opening with a battle cry. She is _magnificent._

The battle goes tough after that. Tough, but not impossible. With Johanna thrumming in her skull, a roar that revs up in time with her pulse, Queen feels invincible. It is inevitable that the Cleaner will fall, to magic, to fist, or to axe. If they get hurt, it’s a good hurt. An honest, accountable hurt, to be healed in the adrenaline-wash of victory. When the shadow slams its fist into Joker and knocks him hard into the wall, Joker isn’t even the one who screams.

Crow is the one who screams. The sound of it gives Queen goosebumps. Never mind that diarama is already spilling from Carmen’s outstretched hand. Never mind that Joker staggers to his feet with a soft hiss. The noise only chokes off when Joker reaches out and takes Crow’s shoulder. Crow grabs a handful of Joker’s lapel and yanks him close, and Queen thinks, childishly: _oh god don’t kiss._

Nobody kisses. The shadow rears up, readies itself for another attack, and Crow howls. Howls a word, syllables, meaning.

“Loki!”

It’s difficult to look at, this thing that spirals up into existence. Black and white and illusory points of gray spin in Queen’s vision. The pattern drips off of the figure, splatters down onto Crow beneath it and leaves streaks of black-gray-violet behind on his coat. Some of it dribbles into Joker’s hair and across his mask.

Whatever Crow says, he says it with his mouth pressed into Joker’s hair. Queen doesn’t hear it, but the persona does. It raises a jagged sword; the shadow screams, staggers like the world is tilting beneath it. When the persona dissipates, its color stays behind on Crow. On Joker. On the shadow, spreading to swallow it whole in sickening swirls. The shadow claws, the shadow bites -- itself. It digs its nails into the skin of its face like it’s trying to peel off a mask even as it snaps at its own fingers. Like a cat catching its own tail, it tumbles to floor, tearing into itself.

It takes a long, long minute for the shadow to die. It disappears, as these things do. It does not disappear cleanly, as these things should. Long smears of black-gray-white are left behind on the floor. Queen forces her eyes away, but that only draws her gaze to Joker and Crow. Joker has his arms around Crow’s shoulders, his expression not near horrified enough.

“Holy shit,” says Oracle.

“Let’s get back to the safe room,” says Joker.

* * *

The safe room doesn’t feel safe, not with Crow sitting on a couch looking like the devil’s finger-painting project. He’s got his head ducked down between his knees, his hands clasped together over the back of his neck. Crash position. Ten seconds to impact. Joker sits next to him, one hand rubbing idle circles into Crow’s back and the other smudging that gray ooze off his own cheek. He examines it shining against the leather of his gloves.

Oracle winces. “Please don’t lick that.”

Crow coughs out a laugh.

“What is it?” Joker asks.

“I think he was just saying hi,” says Crow.

“ _He_ ?” Deja vu all over again, but this time Queen will get her answers. “What _was_ that?”

“What, you didn’t hear me the first time? Loki.”

Queen braces herself, but no monster bursts forth from Crow. The name sits uneasy in the air.

“How do you have two persona?”

Crow unclasps his hands and creaks his way upright. He reaches up to pull his mask off, and Queen sees him in some strange double-vision. He removes the familiar beak, but she also sees him reach back further. She sees him fold his hands around red cloth, but also cross his fingers together across a dark helm. He’s wearing white, he’s wearing black.

She shakes her once, sharp, and the confusion dissipates.

“Well, miss, I’ve always been a very gifted child.” Polite pause for laughter that never comes.

“What did you _do_?” She takes a step towards him. She’s going to wring answers out of his scrawny throat even if she has to go through Joker to do it.

“I -- ” Crow’s awful, clever tongue fails him. He rallies. “Robin Hood was first, but what was I supposed to do with that? Do you know what he’s waiting for, in the stories? For his king to come home.” He’s not looking at her anymore. He’s not looking at Joker. If he’s making eye contact with anything, it’s far away and distant. “For someone better to come home from a Holy War, so he could kneel again. _Bullshit!_ ”

Half the room jumps at his sudden increase in volume. Joker pulls him closer.

“He’s a wildcard,” says Joker, like that makes sense in context. “Like me. But our persona are born of bonds.”

“And my experience with human bonding is -- ” Crow waves a careless hand, “ -- well, you probably find it self-evident.”

One of the others moves. Queen braces herself to stop Noir, if she has to. They did promise Joker. But it’s Panther breaking rank to flop on the other side of Crow. She scoots into his space, pressing against him shoulder to knee. He allows it.

“Okay,” says Panther. “One question! What did it _do?_ ”

Crow rubs a hand over his unmasked face like a tired salaryman. “A breakdown.”

* * *

It’s strange for Akechi to come downstairs and show his face. He’s been assiduously avoiding Sojiro, in and out like a stray cat with fewer manners than Morgana. It’s a school day, and Akira’s been gone for hours already, when Akechi walks down the stairs with carefully audible steps. He holds his chin high, his back stiff, and nods a greeting. But he doesn’t sit at the counter. Instead, he tucks himself into the far end of the far booth, as if distance and a few customers will save him from Sojiro’s regard.

It almost works, until Akechi pulls out a book and a goddamn energy bar, nibbling at the edge like Sojiro would allow Genghis Khan to eat that shit in his cafe. Sojiro is screwed if any of the customers discover he can fry an egg and decide they want one, but that’s a risk he’s willing to take. By the time Sojiro brings over a cup of coffee and a bowl of rice, egg, and nori, Akechi has abandoned the energy bar. He twitches at the _clink_ of the dishes, dragging his eyes up from -- Sojiro squints to read upside down -- Haruki Murakami.

There’s a thin, fucked up thread tying together Akira’s friends. Like Yusuke, Akechi shows that tangle in the face of food. Yusuke falls ravenously upon anything put in front of him; Sojiro’s spent the last month and change trying to convince him that no one’s going to take it away if he slows down. He’s already made peace with the fact that, once Futaba starts attending Kosei, he’s going to be making bento for two. In contrast to Yusuke’s impression of a starving wolf, Akechi eyeballs breakfast like he’s a foreigner cornered in a bar with no price tags.

“It’s not poisoned.”

“I don’t want to cause undue strain on your budget.”

“I don’t need somebody with pimples worrying about my finances. Eat your breakfast.”

More like lunch, really. By the time Akechi’s finished, the rush, such as it ever is, has passed. Sojiro flips the sign to closed to give himself a chance to clean up and see what his newest juvenile delinquent will do next. Akechi scrapes the last bit of rice out of his bowl, gathers his dishes, and heads to the sink. He washes, he dries, he turns to Sojiro and tilts himself forward in a precise bow.

“Thank you for the meal,” he murmurs, and he heads for the stairs.

Sojiro could let him go. The simplest route between Point A and Point B is ignoring Akechi until Sae takes responsibility for him. She’s a smart woman. She’ll handle it. On the other hand, what idiot turns his back on the C4 while waiting for the bombsquad to show up?

“Sit,” says Sojiro, already hating himself and the conversation he’s about to have.

He makes them both more coffee, because he’s not a masochist. Akechi sits, for reasons unknown. He slides back into the booth and picks up his book, but doesn’t so much as turn the page before Sojiro joins him. Then Akechi marks his place and puts Murakami aside, folding his hands on the table in front of him. It would all make a very calm, professional picture, if Akechi didn’t look worse every time Sojiro sees him. In some ways, Sojiro figures that’s a good thing. If the veneer of perfection was a weapon in Akechi’s arsenal, of course it had to go. On the other hand, there’s not an airline in the world that wouldn’t charge the kid extra for the bags he’s packing under his eyes.

Akira’s keeping it together okay, by all appearances. Other than his recent spotty attendance (the flu, Sojiro explained, very contagious), there have been no complaints from the school. They had a nice conversation this morning about the amount of apple to put in any given curry. Sojiro doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t know if that means anything at all, other than Akira’s a resilient little shit.

“I appreciate your hospitality. I can be moved out by noon tomorrow.”

“Jesus christ.” It’s more exhale than curse. “Do you and Akira actually have conversations, or you just look at each other assuming things all damn day?”

“...we converse.”

“Good. I’m not kicking you out, I’m just. Checking in.” Sojiro scowls at himself. He might as well throw on a backwards cap and ask Akechi how he’s hanging.

“We’re very close to our goal now.” Eagerness leaks into Akechi’s voice, sharpness. “It won’t be long until this is done.”

“And you haven’t run into any other trouble?”

Akechi considers that for a long, dragging moment. He lifts one hand and presses it against his bruised cheek. His voice still carries a rasp; Tae says that might never go away.

“A tail, from time to time, but now that I’m paying attention they’re no threat. I don’t go out alone.”

“Smart. How’s all -- ” Sojiro gestures to Akechi’s face, his prodding hand -- “that?”

Akechi chuckles. “You know, I’d like to say I’ve had worse, but this is actually a novel experience. No one’s ever gone for the literal jugular before.”

“I had a visitor,” says Sojiro.

Akechi freezes. “Ah.”

“Said his name was Tanaka.”

“He employs an astounding number of Tanakas, yes.”

“I’m going to warn Futaba and Akira as well, but avoid anyone who says they’re from family services unless Sae or I are with you.”

“Social workers,” Akechi sneers.

“Fake social workers, most likely.”

“As if the real ones are any better.”

Akechi takes an aggressive sip of his coffee. Sojiro raises his own cup to buy a little time. How does he get himself into this shit? He never wanted kids. He never read any articles, never paid attention. Now look at them all.

“You’re going to have to play nice.”

“I always play nice,” Akechi snaps. “I have never not played nice. It’s not as if they notice the difference.”

_(Sae has reassembled her file on one Goro Akechi. It sits in the middle of her sleek dining room table, more out of place, Sojiro thinks, than Akechi would probably like. If Akechi himself ever visited the Niijima residence, he would have wormed his way in immediately. Sojiro could do with a little less polish; he had an apartment like this, once, back when he wore suits like that._

_Sojiro takes a seat at Sae’s insistence, and she makes them tea because she knows better than to try her hand at coffee with him. She sets down the cups just-so and scoots her chair in, pushes the manila folder towards him._

_“Thank you for your forbearance,” she tells him. “A little extra time has meant a great deal here, both professionally and personally.”_

_She’s been coming to the cafe for a couple years now, almost as long as he’s had it open. There’s no doubt she looked him up. Hell, he looked her up to make sure she wasn’t the new face of an old grudge. It’s good to see her like she was two years ago: exact, but not a tightly wound spring ready to snap._

_He doesn’t bother asking if he can smoke, because what’s the use of stupid questions. He just flips the folder open. A dour, chubby-faced child stares up at him from a polaroid picture taken up against a blank white wall._

_“He’s been in the system for over a decade,” says Sae. “He was taken into family homes on a trial basis three times, but none of them stuck.”_

_“Do we know why not?” If Akechi was out kicking neighborhood puppies, Sojiro would prefer to know about it._

_“The first and third were behavioral issues. Nothing so violent that I’d consider it a marker, but things you might expect of a child with his history. Nightmares, inappropriate lashing out, et cetera.”_

_“And the second?”_

_Sae grimaces, a downtick of her mouth that speaks volumes. “There was an abuse investigation. The biological children were placed with an aunt and uncle. From what I can gather, that took longer than it should have to resolve itself.”_

_“They usually do.”_

_Sojiro does his damnedest to give Child Services the benefit of the doubt. He knows they’re overworked and understaffed. He tells himself that every time Futaba has a nightmare or a fit, so filled up with fear it has nowhere else to go but out. He can deal with it. He’s determined to deal with it, for her sake.)_

“Futaba’s social workers are alright. I know Sae’s trying to get the same ones assigned to your case, since we know their bullshit is minor.”

“That’s not precisely comforting, given her uncle.”

Sojiro’s regretting his decision to smoke less in front of the kids. He could use a cigarette or twenty.

“How do you know about that?”

“I’m a detective. I detected. Ah.” Akechi taps a thumb against the rim of his coffee mug. “I _was_ a detective.”

“When did you check on her?”

“An interesting choice of words. Maybe I was checking in on her, rather. Making sure she wasn’t going to be any trouble.”

“You tell me.”

Sojiro meets Akechi’s stare with a level one of his own. He’s been around the block too many times to be baited by someone on the wrong end of puberty. Akechi knows the stakes. Akechi definitely knows where he’s at on the list of priorities, particularly in relation to Futaba.

Akechi looks away first. “Soon after Ms. Isshiki’s death, and again when you gained custody. I don’t expect you to believe me when I say I was relieved.”

“Don’t tell me what I don’t believe, kid.”

“I signed on for murder,” says Akechi to the wall. “I didn’t expect to...force my life onto anyone.”

People like Shido aren’t in the habit of letting their child soldiers read the fine print, no.

“That’s a hell of a way to learn consequences.”

“I didn’t though, did I? Perhaps I would have cracked if you’d left her there, but I don’t think I would have. I bought my freedom with hers, after all.”

“Good thing it’s not either-or anymore.”

“Hmm,” says Goro, cradling his coffee mug in both hands. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

But he stays downstairs as Sojiro reopens the shop, and he reads in the far booth until Akira comes home.

* * *

Akira comes to with his forehead resting against faux-metal bars and something blunt prodding him in the cheek. He looks up through his eyelashes at Caroline’s displeased face. If she had any other expressions in her repertoire, the displeasure might mean something to him. Justine edges into view, a warning finger pressed against her lips. Akira glances over their shoulders; Igor’s desk is empty.

“We don’t have long,” Justine whispers. She’s very, very pale.

“Something’s not right, Inmate.” Caroline stops prodding him with her baton, wringing her hands around it like it’s his neck instead. “Something is very wrong.”

The Velvet Room looks like it always has, minus its master. Then again, what the hell does Akira know about the natural states of psycho-magical inbetweens? They neglected that one in social studies.

“Is it Igor?” He keeps his voice low, all the same. “Is he missing?”

Justine bites her lip. “We have -- slipped to the left of his attention.”

A chill grabs hold of Akira’s spine. Goosebumps blossom on every inch of him.

“Why?” he asks.

“We can’t remember.” Caroline grapples with her own volume, her obvious desire to shout and stomp her foot. “We need you to…”

“To?” Akira prompts.

“We don’t know,” says Justine.

Akira swallows down the hundred useless things he could say to that. She knows she’s not being very helpful; he can see the fear plain on her face. They’re only children.

“Whatever’s wrong, I’ll figure it -- ”

Chains rattle behind him. Both twins snap their gazes to the far corner of the cell, their hackles up. Justine slaps a hand over Caroline’s mouth to muffle her outraged yell. Akira turns too fast, tangling himself up in his chains and landing hard on his palms.

Goro sits in the corner of the cell, wearing a tattered guard’s uniform but chained to the floor by both wrists. The restraints force him to hunch over, a posture which almost shadows both his wide-eyed stare and the black cat in his lap.

* * *

All three of them wake up in the same instant, which is how Akira finds himself in bed with a hissing, puffed up cat and Goro tucked as far into the corner as he can. Either one of them looks a hot second from panic. Akira’s not doing much better. For all of the new things that make up the Velvet Room, that was too new, too much. He presses a hand to his chest and reminds himself how to breathe.

Morgana stalks back and forth across the bed, tail a bottlebrush standard. “What was that place?” He doesn’t give Akira room to respond. “I knew that place!”

“You knew it?” Akira asks.

“I did! I -- I think.” Morgana’s voice goes very small. “I felt like I knew it.”

“I knew it, too,” Goro says.

Akira can feel the tilt of the world’s axis beneath him. He stares at Goro and wishes he weren’t at a loss for words. Goro could use some good words; he’s got his hands in front of his mouth, and any minute now he’s going to start biting. Unable to offer anything more complex, Akira shifts around to pick up Morgana and scoot them both up close to Goro. Morgana balances on their thighs, kneading anxiously.

“How do you know it?” Akira asks, hands on Goro’s wrists but not pulling, not yet.

“I’ve been dreaming it since Robin Hood was awakened. But there’s never been anybody there. There’s never been anything there at all, except Loki.”

Akira swallows thickly. “It’s where my persona come from. It’s called the Velvet Room. But there’s usually, that is...it’s…”

He shouldn’t be this frightened. So what if the twins were weird, the twins have been weird before. Weird, but not scared. He can feel the pressure of Arsene’s wings between his shoulder blades. His hands tremble on Goro’s wrists.

Goro takes his fingers away from his mouth. He cradles Akira’s face in his hands, thumbs resting warm against Akira’s cheekbones.

“It’s all right,” says Goro. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“I’m not worried about myself.”

Except, inexplicably, he is. He keeps thinking about Igor’s stare.

“Those kids?”

“Yeah. And, well.” Akira jiggles his leg, bumping Morgana. Morgana mewls a protest, but has passed beyond more coherent argument.

“Then I’m not letting anything happen to them, either.”

Akira lets Goro pull him down the bed until they’re lying on their sides with only Morgana separating them. If Morgana is feeling at all squished between their chests, his rumbling purr says nothing about it. Goro slings an arm over them both. Somehow, some way, Akira goes back to sleep. He dreams of nothing.

* * *

Haru invites herself over. It would be a touch rude from anyone else; even from Haru, it’s not the best display of manners. Makoto really can’t complain, though. For one thing, they’re almost at the end of this tragedy. For another, Haru puts a hand on Makoto’s arm, just above her elbow, while she’s tell-asking. The memory of the touch, muffled through two layers of fabric, burns through the rest of the afternoon.

For once, Makoto is thankful that Sae is staying late at work. She doesn’t even care if Sae is off adopting every juvenile criminal in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The apartment is meticulously clean. There’s cake in the fridge. Makoto is suffering the world’s slowest, sweetest heart attack. She’ll either die of that or of dehydration, if her palms don’t stop sweating.

She makes tea. Haru shakes out her umbrella and shakes her hair back into its proper place. The smile she turns on Makoto is less euphoric than it has been, just at the edges. Perhaps she’s as nervous as Makoto is. Perhaps Makoto needs to stop projecting. Haru takes her tea with a murmured thank you and joins Makoto on the sofa, tucking her feet underneath her.

Makoto resists the urge to reach out and curl a hand over Haru’s ankle. It’s one thing to touch her when they’re in the Metaverse or when Haru is in need of comfort. Makoto dreads overstepping boundaries.

Haru finishes her tea and leans forward to place her mug delicately on the coffee table. She folds her hands in her lap.

“At first,” she says, so softly, “I thought Sugimura had seen the error of his ways under his own power. It’s not unheard of, even in our circles.”

“At first?” Makoto echoes.

“It’s all a little too much, isn’t it.”

Haru stares down at her clasped hands, and Makoto has the first inkling that she’s in trouble, here.

“I don’t think so.”

Makoto winces at her own weak side-step. Really, she should just confess and get it over with. But -- she bites her lip and forces herself not to look away. She just doesn’t want Haru to be disappointed with her.

“Did you do it?” Haru asks.

Another mistake. Makoto drags in a deep breath. There’s a case to be made for her actions; she wouldn’t have done any of it, otherwise.

“No. I only made the request.”

“Without asking me.”

“You would have said no. Everything you’ve told me, and you never...you never asked for my help. You never let me help.”

“I just wanted someone to listen. That was the help I wanted.” Haru lifts her face at last, and the tears rimming her eyes are a slap in the face. Her voice stays steady. “I wanted to take care of it myself.”

“I couldn’t just sit there and watch it happen!”

Haru’s idea of a solution and Makoto’s were...fundamentally misaligned. Makoto came to terms with that before making her request.

“So you went to Akira.”

 _Be brave_ , Makoto tells herself, and she squares her shoulders. “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I went to Akechi. Akira assisted, but. He’s paid back a little bit of his debt to you, now.”

Silence stretches between them. For a split second, Makoto can imagine gratitude. She can imagine Haru’s arms around her neck, Haru’s lips warm on her cheek. She deserves a little of that, she thinks, for helping to put things back in balance.

Tears spill down Haru’s cheeks, and they’re not born of happiness. “You think I wanted him to see any of that?”

“I -- it was only Mementos.”

“Any of it.” Haru doesn’t shout. That’s worse. “How could you get him involved? How could you not ask me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“They’re my worries, Mako. Not yours.”

“Your worries are my worries.”

Haru shakes her head, her curls bouncing. Some wisps of her hair stay stuck to her damp face. She exhales shakily and smoothes her skirt.

“Thank you for wanting to help me. I don’t -- I have to go.”

“You’re welcome to stay.”

“I know. Please don’t discuss this with Akira. Or Akechi.”

Makoto clasps her hands together, pressing her fingers tight. She could reach out and grab Haru’s hand, her sleeve, her skirt. There’s an explanation, if only Haru would listen and see the sense in it. Makoto can’t regret saving her from that man.

But she can respect how Haru feels. She can let Haru go.

* * *

Akira will make it through the remainder of Shido’s Palace without going back to the Velvet Room. He doesn’t want to talk to Igor. He doesn’t want to face the twins without answers. Shido is an active, tangible threat to life and limb. Somehow, stealing his Treasure has become the easier option. At least Akira knows what the hell he’s doing. He might even go so far as to call himself an expert.

Not that the Palace is making it easy on him. Or his team. They haven’t been this clumsy since the very beginning, and he’s never seen Makoto trip over herself like that. Particularly not in an attempt to avoid Haru’s line-of-sight. Akira slings out an agidyne to cover the gap. A month ago, he would have been able to ask either of them what the deal was.

He can sort of guess what the deal is, but it’s hard to do anything about it. When this is all over, he’ll ask Ann about it, see if she can intervene.

This whole thing is making him feel like a teacher with an increasingly complicated seating chart.

The word problem of his life:

Makoto can’t stand next to Haru. Haru can’t stand next to Goro. Yusuke can stand next to anyone, but is getting antsy about being kept away from the front lines. Futaba needs to stand in the back and be protected. Morgana can stand next to Goro, but everyone else flinches whenever he summons Loki instead of Robin Hood. Which student is the shortest?

Arsene laughs at him. Arsene likes Loki, or the idea of Loki, the thief-god who brought the world crashing down around everyone’s ears. Arsene’s power flares every time Loki is called, a compulsive itch that gathers in the center of Akira’s back. If there’s any use in scolding a persona, Akira hasn’t found it. Instead, he finds excuse after excuse for Arsene’s presence.

They’re so close -- so _fucking_ close -- to securing a route and going home, to being able to send out a calling card and stick in a pin in this bullshit. Akira can feel the discordant thrum of a safe room just ahead, the perfect spot from which to launch their final, glorious heist. It’s not that simple. It’s never that simple.

A shadow steps into the light, blocking the door to the safe room. Akira can’t even summon shock for the form it takes. He’s just tired. And maybe a little angry.

Shido’s cognition is almost a match for the real one: shaggy-haired, tired. Bruised. But the bruises are still angry red and purple, fresh as a horrible daisy. It bares its teeth at them in snarl more suited to a dog than a teenage boy. Akira doesn’t even register the gun it’s holding, at first. It says nothing, only blocks the door.

“Move,” says Goro, voice cold.

The cognition raises the gun, steadying its aim with fingers wrapped around its wrist. Right between Goro’s eyes. Akira grabs Goro’s elbow, ready to pull him out of the way -- if that’s even possible on the wrong end of a bullet. Everyone’s hands go to their weapons.

“No,” it says, voice impossibly clear and unmarked by the violence done to its real world counterpart. Of course, Shido won’t have heard the damage he’s done to Goro’s voice.

Goro bristles. “Move or I’ll move you.”

The cognition laughs, a sly chuckle. “Will you? You’re a treacherous little coward. I don’t think you’ll really put yourself in danger for them.” Its eyes flick to Akira. “Maybe him. One hand down your pants was all it took, wasn’t it?”

Akira doesn’t bother to argue with the cognition. He doesn’t think it cares about the zero sum of hands down pants. It’s not a creature of logic, just a misinterpreted shadow of a lie. He should shoot it. He looks into its swollen face and thinks he might have to let someone else do the deed.

“Shut up!” Goro barks. “Shut _up_ and _move_!”

It clicks off the safety, or something. Damned if Akira actually knows how guns work outside of the Metaverse. Goro has a more profound knowledge, so does Shido, so does the cognition.

“After everything he gave me, you do this.” It dares to sound disappointed. “Maybe you liked it at the group home, after all. Getting the shit kicked out of you by the big kids. Sleeping with one eye open all the damn time. Hungry, poor, doomed to some shithole high school and a shithole job until you died of menial labor and your mother’s idiot genetics.

“He lifted me up!” It distracts itself and waves the gun in a wide, expressive arc. “Pulled me out of filth! But you just can’t stop laying down with dogs, can you?”

Goro clenches his fists, and Akira knows. Knows, and will not -- cannot -- watch Goro summon Loki, watch Goro watch himself tear himself to pieces. Arsene agrees, and Arsene digs deep into the simmering pit of Akira’s anger and pulls up a spell that Arsene does not -- cannot -- know.

“Mudo.”

The cognition crumples without fanfare.

* * *

 

 

> **Ann:** So like, in conclusion
> 
> **Ann:** as a kid I would have dated maleficent
> 
> **Ann:** A super-gay essay by Ann Takamaki
> 
> **Goro:** I don’t think I should go to any of your photoshoots, on the off-chance that I meet this woman.
> 
> **Goro:** I’m not entirely sure how Akira hasn’t dueled her for your honor.
> 
> **Ann:** My honor is a-okay, thanks.
> 
> **Ann:** But you should definitely come to a photo shoot. You’re super pretty, I bet I could get you in one
> 
> **Ann:** It’d be nice to work with a male model I don’t have to worry about getting all friggin handsy.
> 
> **Goro:** A tempting offer, now that my blossoming idol career has been ground into the dust.
> 
> **Goro:** I’d have to wear a mask, however.
> 
> **Ann:** very mysterious!
> 
> **Ann:** slightly kinky!
> 
> **Ann:** Should I tell akira?
> 
> **Goro:** I’d thank you not to introduce an element of surprise into my nonexistent sexlife.
> 
> **Ann:** Nonexistent?
> 
> **Goro:** I’m not sure why anyone assumes otherwise.
> 
> **Goro:** Though I am increasingly sure that you all do.
> 
> **Ann:** I can totally stop.
> 
> **Ann:** Sorry if that was out of line. ):
> 
> **Goro:** It’s hardly your fault.
> 
> **Goro:** Are we not healthy teenagers? Did Akira not have to steal your makeup?
> 
> **Goro:** And I’m attempting to familiarize myself with this human form of communication called ‘teasing.’
> 
> **Ann:** You are also human allowed to human tell us to human shut up!
> 
> **Ann:** Or if you want to talk about it?
> 
> **Goro:** There’s not much to talk about, honestly.
> 
> **Goro:** I’m simply
> 
> **Goro:** Unused to touching, I suppose.
> 
> **Goro:** Akira will be lucky if I don’t accidentally knee him in the groin before we ever do anything exciting.
> 
> **Goro:** He’s kind enough not to say how frustrating that is.
> 
> **Ann:** Okay, I’m gonna tell you something serious
> 
> **Ann:** Shiho and I haven’t ‘’’’’’’gone all the way’’’’’’’’ either
> 
> **Ann:** and from the other half of that equation
> 
> **Ann:** It’s not frustrating!! Not in the way you’re worried about
> 
> **Ann:** also do you know what’s hecking great!
> 
> **Ann:** cuddling
> 
> **Ann:** holding hands
> 
> **Ann:** smooching on cheeks in picture booths
> 
> **Goro:** You degenerate
> 
> **Goro:** Thank you

* * *

In the end, they decide against melodrama. Makoto can’t say she minds. She’s never wanted the Phantom Thieves to have bootleg merchandise and adoring fans. How often has a political movement been devoured by its own marketability? Too often. She mistrusts the internet. Or maybe she mistrusts everything, today, right now, sitting across the table from Haru with neither of them daring to make eye contact.

She’s safe, and that’s all that matters.

_(“If -- “ Makoto is no longer used to stuttering, failing to bring her own thoughts to their own conclusions. “If you offended a friend, how would you make up for it?”_

_Sae looks up from her book. It’s nice to see her reading something other than case files, even if Makoto recognizes the novel as a crime drama. Sae with her hair up in a loose bun, Sae in an old sweater with a cup of coffee at her elbow and her feet up on the sofa: Makoto might as well be hallucinating, for all she recognizes the scene._

_“It depends on the offense.”_

_“I interfered in a personal problem. I can see the disagreement with my means, but not my ends.”_

_Sae closes the book, folding the page to keep her spot. “This is about Haru?”_

_“Is it that obvious?” Makoto asks, wishing she weren’t turning pink. Of all the topics she hasn’t broached with Sae, it’s not that she’s been avoiding this one in particular. It’s just so much easier to hide than the weight of Akechi, Phantom Thieves, the looming grief that Makoto and Sae share._

_“I am a lawyer, Makoto.” Sae’s expression grows, astoundingly, softer. “I don’t mind it, and Haru is a very nice young lady. I’m not sure I can offer much in the way of romantic advice, but it sounds like your pride has hurt hers.”)_

The lack of grand gesture leaves Futaba and Yusuke sulking for ten minutes, until Akira lets them in on his masterstroke: a hit-and-run on Shido’s computer, a digital calling card that will devour itself after delivery. The Phantom Thieves will lay low and lay claim to nothing. Ryuji grumbles a little about that, but it seems they all know what lines they’ve crossed.

Makoto lingers in the doorway of Leblanc as the others file out, until she’s watching Haru’s back disappear into darkness. She turns to find three sets of eyes on her. Morgana bumps his head into Akechi’s arm, an unsubtle nudge. For a moment, Makoto thinks he won’t go. Then he scoops Morgana up and, without a word, heads upstairs. Makoto steps back into Leblanc, letting the door fall shut behind her with the bell’s cheerful ringing.

“Want something to drink?” Akira asks. “Not coffee, at whatever time it is.”

“You’re supposed to be a rebel,” her voice and the joke fall flat, even to her own ears.

Akira shrugs. “Mostly an accident. There’s tea now, come sit.”

She sits. She watches him make tea. There’s something about Akira’s measured quiet that reminds her of Sae. There’s something about the memory of his outburst that does the same. A box filled to bursting. A kettle just before the screech.

The cold certainty of a mudo spell and the heavy sound of flesh hitting the floor.

“Haru’s not very happy with me.”

He shrugs. He sits with one arm slung out over the back of the booth, as if he’s gotten used to shoulders there.

“She’s not very happy with me, either,” he says.

“I should think not.” Makoto looks towards the stairs. No doubt Akechi can hear them, unless his sense of propriety extends to headphones. “Akira, I still don’t…”

“Approve?” he asks.

“Understand.”

Akira has a habit of not-quite-looking at people. It bothered Makoto, who was raised with very strident lectures about sitting up straight and making eye contact. At first, she thought it made him look shifty. Now, as he sips a cup of tea and stares somewhere over her shoulder, she doesn’t mind. She’s gotten used to it. It’s just Akira’s thinking face. She’s missed it.

“Sometimes I wonder if we should look me up on the Metanav,” Akira says.

Makoto stills, her mug halfway to her mouth. “Really?”

“Especially after -- ” Akira gestures with his tea, a broad circle in the air that somehow encompasses his meaning. “-- all that.”

“You scared us.”

“I scared myself.”

“Is he really worth that?”

Akira thinks about that. Akechi, notably, does not thunder down the stairs with a knife or a folding chair, ready to beat her head in. Headphones, she decides.

“Yes,” says Akira, at last. “I’m not proud of how I acted, but.” He shrugs. “I don’t regret doing it.”

Makoto grimaces. “Yes, that’s what I told Sis.”

His mouth tilts in half a smile. “We’re a couple of gay disasters, aren’t we?”

Makoto smothers her surprised snort in her napkin. For a moment, they sit in relative peace. The tea is quite good, herbal but sweetened with honey. She doesn’t bother wondering where or why he learned to make it; she likes to think obliviousness doesn’t suit her.

“I don’t think you have a Palace,” she says. “You’re very self-aware.”

“Compliment or not?” He tugs at the loose ends of his hair. “I try. You know -- my dad has a temper. Nothing serious, nothing dangerous, but I never liked it. A lot of shouting, a lot of lectures. Mom always says he’s passionate.”

“Oh,” says Makoto, unsure. It’s the most she’s heard him say about his parents, particularly all at once. Akira gives off the impression of someone who wandered into Tokyo fully formed, like a spirit who just up and got sick of the mountains.

“I never wanted to be like that, so I just decided...to hell with caring.”

“If that’s your guiding philosophy, you’re doing terribly.”

“Right?” he chuckles. “I can’t not care. I have to fix things where I can. But I do want to do it at a more acceptable volume in the future. Especially since, well. I think Goro likes shouting even less than I do.”

“...you really do like him.”

“I really do.”

“I think.” Makoto’s thoughts jumble together, run into themselves. She clears her throat and tries again. “I think, if I learned any bad habits from Sis, maybe it’s valuing outcome over --”

“Journey?” Akira suggests. “Input?”

“Outcome over input.” Makoto smiles wryly. “I suppose there’s a reason you call me Queen.”

“Hey, it’s not a bad thing when we’re up to our elbows in Shadows. I think I’ve proven I’m not the greatest at apologies, especially where Haru’s concerned, but. You could try asking her what she needs from you right now.”

Makoto has to admit that the thought rankles. She should know, shouldn’t she? She should be able to pull out whatever gesture or words Haru needs without Haru having to expend any further effort. She wanted to save Haru from having to think about the whole awful issue. But Haru seems to want to think about it.

Well, no use trying the same failure of a strategy over and over again.

* * *

Shido is --

Shido is what he is.

A blowhard, mostly.

Akira doesn’t know what else to say about the man who ruined his life. Even ‘ruined his life’ feels melodramatic in comparison. Shido drunk and pissy was nothing on Shido at any other time of day. A night in jail, a day in court, an assault charge? Akira got off easy.

Shido’s shadow doesn’t even recognize him, particularly not when Goro’s there to be recognized instead.

“Ah,” it sneers. “The prodigal son.”

Goro raises a sleek black gun that has never once gone _pew-pew_ and shoots the shadow square in the face. Shido shakes it off with a politician’s chuckle, pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes away blood that never flowed. Goro breathes, and shakes, and bites his tongue. He stares Shido’s shadow in its face and says nothing.

“So cold,” says the shadow. “No welcome for your benefactor?”

“You’re not --” Goro hisses out.

The shadow tucks away the handkerchief and adjusts the fall of his jacket. “Not what? Not your father, or not your patron?”

“Hey!” Ann hollers, whip out and fire already dancing in the air around her. “Leave him alone!”

“No,” says Shido.

It’s a rough fight.

Loki cannot turn Shido against himself. Mudo cannot bring him down.

Akira summons Joan D’Arc and Arsene waits, watching.

Shido climbs a mountain of golden limbs, and Shido -- eventually -- falls.

Goro raises his gun, which has stayed dangerous and real, and says nothing as he takes aim at his father’s shadow. Akira thinks: _let him do this._ _Let Shido’s eyes boil over on national television, let him cough up chunks of himself and let him die in pain._

Robin Hood manifests without Goro’s voice, light pooling up out of the shadows to fit himself in the infinitesimal space between Shido and Goro’s gun. He wraps one hand around the barrel, white glove stark against the silencer. Akira can’t guess what passes between Goro and his persona in that moment, can’t guess if Loki has cast a vote or kept his quiet.

“No,” says Robin Hood, his voice a rumbling echo, a tired rasp. “No more.”

Goro drops the gun.

* * *

 

Goro cheats at Go Fish, which is almost as bad as Morgana insisting that Akira help him play Go Fish. But every time he has to flip a card over for his talking cat’s lack of thumbs, Goro’s lips twitch up, so. Worth it. It’s worth this piddly little celebration, just the three of them in Leblanc’s attic. Akira and Goro split a roll cake and drink contraband whipped cream monstrosities from That Bullshit American Place They Don’t Talk About. Goro downs another lactaid pill and lets Morgana lick whipped cream off his spoon.

It’s going to be okay, isn’t it? Sae can deal with it from here on out. Let adults take the reins, for once. The hooligans have earned a break.

Later, he can only think that he jinxed them. That’s the only explanation for the way Goro’s phone buzzes in his pocket, for the way he goes chalky when he pulls it out and sees the caller ID. Akira reaches out, but Goro shakes his head. He swipes the screen to answer the call, taps the speakerphone button to let them in on it.

“What do you want?” The way Goro tries to drive his voice lower, keep it from cracking, highlights the rasp of it.

“To apologize.” Shido’s voice is slurred and accompanied by the _tink_ of glass on wood. “I have so much to apologize for, Goro.”

“Don’t you dare call me that,” Goro hisses.

Akira leans forward. Morgana’s tail lashes. He’s still afraid. Akira’s still afraid. How could Goro not be?

“I could have loved your mother, if I were a better man. I know I could have. I promise that I could have loved you both. I should have.”

“I don’t want to hear this from you.”

But when Akira reaches forward to take the phone, Goro yanks it back.

“Everything’s my fault,” says Shido. “Everything you’ve been through is my fault. I talked to -- ”

“I don’t care.” Goro doesn’t shout. He speaks with a frozen calm that makes Akira want to wrap him in a dozen blankets. “I don’t care about anything you have to say. Nothing you can do will ever fix it. Don’t contact me again.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” says Shido.

The sound of glass-on-wood is replaced by metal-scraping-against-wood, by a heavy click. Goro croaks an objection, recognizing the noise before Akira’s brain can even keep up. The sound of a gunshot cracks through the attic. Goro drops the phone and bolts down the stairs.

* * *

Every channel and newspaper in the country is blazoned with Masayoshi Shido’s face, ruddy with emotion and wet with tears. Sojiro watches from the comfort of his sofa, feet up on the coffee table. Shido’s confession is a cluster of babble, crimes strung together into incoherence. It’ll take the police ages to do all the paperwork, once someone kicks their ass into actually doing it. Hopefully sooner rather than later, or Sojiro’s going to give all his old buddies an earful.

Anyone with a good ear and a quick mind is going to start separating the wheat from the chaff. Shido has mentioned his son at least three times, though each time he’s broken down sobbing almost immediately after.

“I abandoned him -- ”

“I forced him to abuse his position -- ”

“I threatened him -- ”

It won’t be long before someone starts connecting those unhappy dots into a picture of Goro Akechi. So far, nothing he’s said will implicate Goro beyond abuse of power, blatant bias in the media, and maybe purposeful dissemination of misinformation. If Sae hadn’t already suspended his work with the police, he’d be done for all the same.

The same press conference restarts its loop, and Sojiro forces himself to watch it again. He needs to know if there’s any hint, any grain of gold that might catch someone’s eye, leading to the Phantom Thieves or to Goro’s real crimes.

The door to the house bangs open just as Futaba thunders down the stairs. Sojiro barely notices the television switching gears abruptly, because he hears Futaba slip and her feet go out from under her. He runs to the foot of the stairs, images of cracked skulls dancing through his head, but she’s only mewling discontentedly and rubbing her tailbone. He helps her to her feet just in time to see Akira dragging Goro into the hall, both of them barely out of their shoes, Morgana slung over one shoulder. All the kids are wide-eyed and pale.

“What’s up?” he asks, not holding out much hope for a good answer.

In the ensuing silence, the news filters back into his perception: “ -- it’s unknown how Shido gained access to the gun, which was untraced and for which he held no permit, but we can only assume -- ”

“He killed himself.” Words creak out of Goro as if he’s only just been strangled.

Sojiro heads back to the living room with kids trailing after him like ducklings. He turns the damned television off. Akira deposits Goro on the sofa, Morgana into Goro’s lap, and hovers. Futaba rubs at her new bruise, but looks all right otherwise. He edges close to her and drops her voice.

“It wasn’t on screen, was it?”

She shakes her head. “Not on the news cameras, no. But in his office. And you know how the internet is, people are already trying to see if they can access the security feeds.”

Gruesome. “You’re steering clear, right?”

“Of course.” Futaba leans close to him, and still he can barely hear her ask, “this wasn't our fault, was it?”

Sojiro does not say ‘good riddance to bad rubbish,’ true as that may be. “Of course not. He had choices. He decided not to face them.”

“I feel funny about it,” Futaba admits.

“That’s fine.” He loops an arm around her shoulders and guides her to her favorite armchair. “You need an ice pack?”

She looks like she has more to ask. She always has more to ask, but today she locks it up behind her teeth. She nods. By the time he comes back with ice wrapped in a kitchen towel, Akira is setting up one of her game consoles and bringing her the controller. Sojiro makes sure she’s comfortable, then takes the other end of the sofa. Maybe some other day he would bother feeling awkward about Akira and Goro wrapped up in each other on the same couch. Or maybe not. It’s not like they’re necking or anything, just sitting curled close, Akira’s hand running through Goro’s hair. There’s room enough between them for Morgana.

Futaba launches into an explanation of the RPG’s completely incoherent plot. She plays for three hours with Akira’s occasional commentary. Sojiro puts his feet back up. Futaba complains about her hands cramping and clicks herself around the screen until some cheerful, innocuous anime about food is autoplaying. It doesn’t manage to work up much of an appetite in Sojiro, and none of the kids say anything, either.

Akira drops off first, snoring gently with his head tipped back against the sofa. Futaba follows, and Sojiro nearly. He drifts between wakefulness and sleep until he hears the rustle of Goro extricating himself and the thump of stocking feet on hardwood. He waits until he’s sure the shuffling footsteps are headed towards the door, not the bathroom, then levers himself up and follows Goro to the entryway. The cat slips off the sofa and follows, because why not?

Goro stands, one shoe on, one shoe off, and stares at Sojiro with a tight-lipped expression.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Sojiro asks, utterly out of diplomacy.

Goro raises his chin, stubborn. “Out.”

“Out where?”

“Wherever I want, given that both of my parents have shuffled themselves off the mortal coil.”

“Should I call Sae?”

“Should you?” Goro scowls at Sojiro and squares his shoulders in open challenge. “Unless she’s signed those papers in the last two hours --”

“I bet she has,” Sojiro interrupts. “She’s pretty on the ball.”

“It is likely --” Goro raises his voice, pitching himself over Sojiro “-- that her offer was a ploy, in any case. Blackmail.”

“It wasn’t,” says Sojiro at a perfectly reasonable volume.

“Even if that’s true, that doesn’t give you any authority over me.”

“It doesn’t. But Akira asked me to keep an eye on you.”

Akira probably didn’t mean in perpetuity, but damned if any more nonsense is going to go down on Sojiro’s watch. It’s highly unlikely that Goro is off to hit up the arcade. Even if it’s that innocuous, that poor plan is out the window and face down in the dirt as soon as someone recognizes Goro’s face and all its bruises.

Goro wrestles his decibel level into submission. “Akira worries too much.”

“Or exactly the right amount.”

“And what am I supposed to do, here?”

“You could start by taking your shoe off and staying awhile.”

Morgana meows something and sinks his claws into Goro’s jeans.

Goro scowls down at him. “You be quiet.”

Morgana declines. He scales Goro like a misguided adventurer on a cantankerous Everest, stopping only when Goro grabs him and peels him off. Morgana hisses in his face, meaning plain even if it’s filtered through cat in Sojiro’s reality.

“That’s none of your business,” says Goro to Morgana, but he does kick off his shoe.

He stands there for a moment, looking like he’s tempted to throw Morgana at Sojiro’s head. He doesn’t, which is best for everyone’s blood pressure. He casts a dubious eye towards the living room and heads for the kitchen instead, dumping Morgana to the floor on his way. Morgana hops up on the counter to chatter something feline. Sojiro leans on the doorframe and watches Goro put up a pretense of having a plan. The kid grabs a box of crackers and stalls out.

“I don’t know,” says Goro to the contents of the cupboard, “why I’m so fucking _upset._ ”

“He was your father,” says Sojiro, because he’s not sure the cat’s said anything more helpful.

Goro’s hands spasm, clench. Sojiro writes the crackers off as martyrs for the cause.

“He wasn’t anything.”

“If he wasn’t anything, you wouldn’t be upset.”

Sojiro could leave this gaping wound to Akira. Akira’s the genius who signed up for it, after all. Unfortunately, Goro’s not a puppy who can get sent back to the pound, and Sojiro knows how he reacted when Akira _actually_ brought home an animal. Which turned out to be alarmingly sentient, establishing a pattern that Sojiro should have paid more attention to.

“I just wanted --” Goro voice cracks. He heaves in a breath and turns to face Sojiro, his face like a sucked lemon.

“Nothing you were ever going to get.”

Sojiro expected to dodge at least the crackers, at most the entire contents of his pantry. But the bluntness has the opposite effect: Goro’s shoulders slump and his expression eases. He’s still blinking too much, but he turns his attention to picking at the packaging.

“Why did you agree to take Akira in?” Goro non-sequiturs it right out there.

“His parents are friends of a friend.”

Goro scowls. “That’s how, not why. I’m not interested in the mechanism. What were the circumstances? You had already adopted Futaba, and you were struggling.”

“Hey, we weren’t struggling.” Oh yes, they were. None of this brat’s business. “You’ve got to know a thing or two about recidivism rates.”

“Of course.”

“You take a kid, one who has a good record otherwise, a couple of dings at school, nothing serious, and you throw him into juvie on a suspiciously aggressive assault charge, what happens?”

“The detention center teaches him true violence. Faith in the system destroyed, he ventures out into the world and proceeds to smash it. A tale as old as melodramatic novels.” Goro cocks his head. “A couple of dings at school, you say?”

“He’s your troublemaker now, you ask him.”

What Sojiro expected from that record -- spotty attendance, a reluctance to socialize, one fist fight that sounded spectacular -- never manifested.

“So you took him in on a whim?”

“‘The goodness of my heart’ sounds better.” Sojiro puts up with Goro staring at him for a hot minute. “What?”

“I admit, I’d begun concocting conspiracy theories. You’re not unalike.”

“Excuse me?”

Goro sighs. “I’ve misled myself with my own fascination for biological connection.”

“Biological connection doesn’t mean shit for shit, kid.”

Goro slumps against the cupboards. He’s crying, but Sojiro does him the favor of not mentioning it. Sometimes a body just needs to leak. The crackers have been mauled beyond recognition. Goro stares down at them.

“Where’s the garbage?” And then, after the corpse has been given an ignominious burial: “I don’t think we can thank you enough. You have no reason to put up with this. Less than no reason. And yet, you have. I -- we -- owe you dearly.”

With Futaba or Akira, Sojiro would wave that off. No problem, no payback. But Goro pulls the shredded remains of his pride around him like a blanket after he’s been shoved in the back of life’s ambulance.

“Make it up to me when I’m old and out of my mind. Hell, make it up to me now.”

Goro’s not dumb. He doesn’t bother asking how. He does lead the way back to the living room. Futaba’s awake, tilting herself side-to-side in the armchair and decidedly not looking at them. She hops to her feet as soon as they cross the threshold; Akira tries to look like he wasn’t pretending to be asleep. He only relaxes when Goro flops back down on the sofa and lets Morgana claim his lap.

Futaba raises her eyebrows (too far, it’s cute) in Sojiro’s direction, a pointed question. He nods: it’s fine. She scoops up the game controller and presents it to the boys with a flourish worthy of a stage magician.

“Who wants to play a game about robots and existentialism?”

Goro does, as it turns out. Sojiro doesn’t understand a goddamn word of it.

* * *

Makoto will not consider it a victory that Haru agrees to meet her. That’s far too shallow. She does pull out all the stops, or as many stops as Sae considers appropriate. The reservation isn’t at a fancy restaurant; Makoto could never hope to impress Haru in that regard. Instead, she’s booked them out two hours at one of the nicer cat cafes. If everything goes pear-shaped, she can at least leave Haru in the capable paws of a dozen friendly furballs, none of whom will be able to tattle on Makoto’s efforts at reconciliation.

She dresses down-ish in a pair of jeans and a blouse borrowed from Sae’s more extensive closet. They decided it was important to strike a balance between taking the meeting seriously and making assumptions. Ankle boots. Light makeup. No gushing compliments when Haru shows up in a flowy-skirt-and-soft-sweater combo that probably cost -- Makoto can’t begin to guess. Ann probably could have rattled off an MSRP for everything down to the bangles on Haru’s wrists.

Haru doesn’t look angry, but Makoto’s seen her mow down shadows in full wrath without a hair out of place.

“I like your earrings,” is the first thing Haru says, clarifying nothing.

“Oh,” says Makoto, touching fingertips to one borrowed pearl as they make their way to the elevator. “Thank you. Sae inherited them from my mother.”

She winces at herself. She didn’t mean to lead in with dead parents. She wishes she’d followed through on her desperate urge to create a script, at least to get her started.

“Your mother liked jewelry?” Haru asks.

There’s no fighting her way out of enemy territory now. “She had a modest collection, but Sae says she picked out every piece carefully.”

“You sound alike.”

“Oh.” People usually tell Makoto she’s like her father, when they mention it at all. “Thank you.”

The elevator drags itself up to the correct floor and abandons them among cheerful signs decorated with striped tails and pawprints. Makoto pulls open the outer door of the cafe for Haru and follows her in. As she hoped, the cafe is relatively quiet this early on a Saturday. It’s hard, in Tokyo, to toe the line between public safety and public privacy. She heads to the counter to put in their order; Haru has already zeroed in on a gray kitten gangling around in full adolescence.

The trip won’t be a total bust, no matter how it ends. By the time Makoto heads to a cozy back table with two hot cocoas, paw shaped marshmallows bobbing on top, the kitten is curled up in Haru’s lap. It sheds on her designer sweater with reckless abandon.

“His poster says his name is Beauregard.” Which is so difficult to pronounce that Makoto thinks it might be a conspiracy against her personally. “They’re all up for adoption.”

Patronizing a cat cafe run by a shelter seemed more like the upstanding, Phantom Thief thing to do. Makoto needs to win herself back into her own good graces somehow.

Haru rubs Beauregard’s chin and he purrs like a jet engine. “He’s beautiful. Thank you for introducing us.”

“You did most of the heavy lifting, there.”

The conversation, such as it is, sputters out. A fat black cat wanders over and bumps into Makoto’s leg calf, either affectionate or blind. She puts a hand down and lets him sniff her fingers, but isn’t sure of proper decorum from there. The only cat she’s ever met is Morgana, and he certainly comes with his own set of rules.

“Give him a scratch between the ears. They like that,” says Haru.

The advice ends in a content cat blob rather than the tragic loss of Makoto’s fingers, so Haru can’t be holding too much of a grudge -- can she? Makoto straightens up, clearing her throat and folding her hands in her lap. She ignores the aggressive mewl of her abandoned friend.

“I wanted to apologize properly,” she says.

Haru drops her eyes to Beauregard, focusing intently on her scratching of his ruff. “I’m getting deja vu.”

“I hope I’m a little more competent at it than Akira.”

Haru’s not indelicate enough to snort. She gives the off the impression anyway. “Neither of you think you did anything wrong.”

“That’s -- fair. That’s fair. I hope it’s not true anymore, but I think it was, yes.”

Haru glances up at Makoto. She doesn’t look ready to cry, which is a plus. Makoto will take ‘faintly irritated’ over tears any day of the week, especially when she deserves it.

“It wasn’t that you had a bad idea, Mako. If I weren’t in such a tizzy over the whole situation, I might have thought about it myself.”

“But.”

“Yes, but. If you’d come to me, we could have done it. Together with Morgana and one of the others, someone else I trusted to see that side of my life.”

“I know. I let my petty anger get the best of me and -- oof.”

Makoto’s tubby new friend has had enough of being ignored. He jumps into Makoto’s lap with all the grace of a bowling ball dropped from a not insignificant height. Then he plants his front paws on the table and makes a try for her marshmallows. There is nothing dignified about her attempts to stop an eight kilo cat from getting what he thinks he deserves.

Which is probably why Haru takes a picture of it.

Makoto sits there with her arms tucked around the cat, who mews his displeasures in a peeping voice. Haru giggles at them, and Makoto immediately forgives the cat for any fur he’s gotten on Sae’s shirt.

“What’s his name?” Haru asks.

Makoto runs down the line of cat posters in her head. “Mochi.”

“It suits him.”

“At least I can pronounce it.”

“You did very well with Beauregard,” says Haru, who is not spiteful but who is a liar. “I don’t want to be mad at you, Mako.”

Makoto ducks her head, hoping her hair might cover for her blush. “I don’t want you to be mad at me. I know I can’t take it back, short of giving Akechi amnesia -- ”

“I can think of a few ways to achieve that.”

“-- but I can promise to be better. And I’ll make up for it however you need.”

Haru reaches across the table and places a hand on Makoto’s wrist. Her fingers are cool and soft. She runs a thumb across the back of Makoto’s hand, and Makoto’s heart kicks into high gear.

“This was an excellent start,” says Haru.

Makoto indulges in ten seconds of screaming debate with herself before she turns her hand to catch Haru’s. She lifts Haru’s hand to her mouth and presses a kiss against her knuckles; it feels braver than punching any ten or twenty shadows. Haru laughs, plainly delighted, and pulls Makoto’s hand over to return the favor.

Despite its greatest efforts, Makoto’s heart does not explode. They talk about better things for the rest of the visit, and leave hand-in-hand. They also leave plus two cat carriers, one weightier than the other, and minus a sizable donation from the Okumura coffers to Happy Paws Shelter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Suicide, discussions of sexuality involving vague allusions to sexual assault, all that murder'n'violence in-line with P5's story
> 
> And that's the end! I might tinker around in this 'verse in small bits and bobs, but I'm not going to tackle the last bit of plot. Unfortunately, Persona 5 lost me a bit somewhere around the last...fifth of the game? So it's a bit more wailing and gnashing of teeth than I'd like to take on. I've enjoyed writing this a lot, and I'm honored that so many of you have enjoyed reading. Thank you all so, so much for the support, kudos, and all your amazing comments. They mean a lot to me.

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings (Ch. 1) 
> 
> Goro's self-harm, in the form of scratching and biting, continues throughout the fic
> 
> The title for the fic itself is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Musical Instrument"
> 
> (The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, —  
> For the reed which grows nevermore again  
> As a reed with the reeds in the river. )
> 
> Chapter titles from Swinburne's "Dolores," which is...a trip and a half.


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